


just this heart with much too much to share

by ProfessorSpork



Category: Frozen (2013), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Multi, OT4, Romantic Friendship, also Elsa's gay, but they get over it eventually, in increasingly alarming combinations, in which lots of cute people fall in love with other cute people, just throwing that out there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-09 00:56:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorSpork/pseuds/ProfessorSpork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Elsa's winter, there are plenty of repairs to be made-both physical and emotional. As Anna relearns her sister and gets closer to Kristoff, she finds life is actually stranger and more wonderful than even she could imagine, once she meets the royal couple of Corona. Eventual Kristoff/Anna/Rapunzel/Eugene ot4 situation, but with lots of adorableness along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grangerbutstranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grangerbutstranger/gifts).



> So, welcome to... this fic! My very good friend Rachel turns 20 today, and I promised I'd write her Anna/Rapunzel, and that somehow turned into this... monstrous epic you are about to see unfold before you. If you like Anna/Kristoff you will like this story, if you like Rapunzel/Eugene you will like this story, and if you like slightly less hetero combinations than those you will also like this fic. Just trust me and enjoy the ride.

Anna has been just the slightest bit obsessed with the Lost Princess of Corona ever since she was a little girl.

When she was small it had just been an idle curiosity, brought on mostly by how weird and overprotective her parents got every time it was mentioned (boy, did that turn out to be a theme or what?), but as she got older, and Elsa started giving her the—well, the cold shoulder—it was a nice little fantasy to have. Of going off to rescue another princess just like her, someone her age, who would want a friend just as badly as she did. Someone to build a snowman with.

A year and a half after she lost her parents, word reached Arendelle that Princess Rapunzel had returned to Corona, and the news had been bittersweet. Corona wasn't far—a two day's journey by sea, if the winds were favorable—but Anna wouldn't sail for all the gems in the Southern Isles. And Elsa was in no state to receive any ambassadors, if Anna could believe the castle staff.

Which is all to say that Anna had been very excited to learn that Rapunzel and her Prince Consort were among the royal guests who had elected to stay for the second coronation party. She'd meant to introduce herself at the first ball, but, y'know, she'd meant to do a lot of things that night. Before, well…

"What do you think she's like?" she asks Kristoff, pulling herself out of that train of thought as they make their way back into town. Anna'd been practically bouncing off the walls that morning, and Elsa had given him a  _please help me_ look over her shoulder, and all of a sudden he 'spontaneously' decided to take Anna out on his new sled. Which was a lot more of a hassle to use in the middle of summer now that it was actually acting like summer, believe him. "Kristoff.  _Kristoff!_ "

"I dunno."

"Well, guess!"

"If I'm going by experience? She's probably sweet and kind but a total spaz."

Anna gasps, affronted. "Kristoff, she's a  _princess._ "

"You're a princess," he points out, and—okay, fine, that's fair.

* * *

Elsa's impromptu skating rink yesterday had been for the townspeople, and the visiting dignitaries had, for the most part, been understanding about her priorities—without her subjects' loyalty, she'd be nothing, and they knew that. But tonight… tonight is for the elite.

Kristoff finds himself missing the easygoing attitude of yesterday's festivities, and he hasn't even made it to the ballroom yet.

After he'd dropped Anna off at the gates she was whisked away by… hell if he knows, ladies in waiting or whatever, and he hasn't seen her since. It only took him half an hour to wash off the day's sweat and change into a clean tunic, but he has no idea how long it takes to make a princess look presentable. So he's kind of in no hurry to get where he's going.

To his surprise and hurriedly-concealed amusement, Olaf has set up his own receiving line outside the ballroom doors. Though now that Kristoff's thinking about it, it's probably a pretty good measurement of who should be here. Like a big sign saying 'if you're not okay with magic, don't even bother.' Perhaps Elsa is more shrewd than he gives her credit for.

"Hi, I'm Olaf! Hi, I'm—Hi! I'm Olaf—"

Most of the guests just walk past the little guy without so much as a glance, and Kristoff frowns. First of all, he's not sure how that bodes for Elsa's screening process, but mostly: what kind of jerk is rude to an adorable talking snowman? (Other than him, he means. He was taken by surprise, it's not the same thing.)

One noblewoman on the line—probably a princess, if the crown is anything to go by—looks excited to get to him, at least. She keeps bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, nudging the guy she's with in the ribs.

Kristoff hangs back to watch as they draw level with the door, because he doesn't want to miss this.

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

"Uhh… hi, how ya doin'?" the man says, bending down to give a stiff handshake.

"I'm good, I'm good," Olaf singsongs, smiling jovially. "What are your names?"

"I'm Rapunzel, and this is Eugene!" the princess says, getting down on her knees to address Olaf at his own level. "Oh, and this is Pascal."

Other guests are literally squeezing their way past them to try and get into the ballroom, aggressively ignoring the whole spectacle, but the Lost Princess of Corona has a lizard on her shoulder and is introducing him to a magic talking snowman as if it's no big deal, and suddenly Kristoff's thinking he was more on the mark than he realized when he was teasing Anna earlier about what Rapunzel might be like.

* * *

Elsa inhales as serenely as possible as she tries to keep a regal half-smile affixed to her face. The ballroom is filling with people, and the déjà vu is overwhelming.

On her right, Anna is nearly vibrating with excitement.

"So many people stayed," Anna notes, and to be fair, that is worth smiling about. Elsa hasn't managed to single-handedly destroy every diplomatic relationship her father ever fostered quite yet, yay! Her internal monologue must be showing on her face, because Anna frowns. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not… feeling cold?" Anna ventures, and the idea that she'd resort to some sort of cute euphemism to keep the ice  _secret_ has Elsa breaking into giggles. Already, the past decade seems like a nightmarish fallacy. How could she have gone so long without her sister?

"I'm okay, Anna."

Anna scrunches up her face and examines Elsa's expression closely before relaxing. "Okay. But I'm staying here tonight. No running off with the first guy I meet and… and leaving you to…" Anna trails off, tongue thickening in her mouth.

Elsa reaches out and squeezes Anna's hand, and the novelty of the skin-to-skin contact shocks them both. "I think it depends on the guy," she says, nodding towards the doors, and when Anna looks up, she sees Kristoff has entered the ballroom. She gives him a little wave, and he waves back, but she quickly loses him in the crowd.

The next fifteen minutes pass by both at a snail's pace and all at once. Kai introduces guest after guest until their faces blur together, and Anna's head reels at the idea of having to remember who everyone is. Putting the faces to names and keeping them straight would require weeks of acquaintance for her, but she's pretty sure Elsa's got them all down pat. It's mind-boggling.

"May I present—Her Royal Highness Princess Rapunzel of Corona, and her consort, Eugene Fitzherbert."

When Eugene bows, Anna spots a flash of green at his shoulder, but it disappears before she can get a better look. She curtsies, as she should, but then she starts bouncing. "Ohmygod, it's so nice to meet you! I've heard  _so much_ about you!"

"You have?" Rapunzel asks, smiling wide, but then she shakes her head, as if to remind herself of something. "Um. Corona happily welcomes her Royal Majesty Queen Elsa to the throne, and as a gesture of goodwill, we'd like—um—we'd like…" She sighs, and elbows her companion in the side. "Eugene!"

"Oh! Right," he says, before bowing again and offering a hand. "Your Majesty. May I have this dance?"

Elsa blinks. "I—I don't dance, but my s—"

"Oh no you don't," Anna says, practically shoving her sister down the platform. "I've learned my lesson. You dance your own dances now."

"Anna!"

"I'll be gentle, I promise," Eugene says with a rakish grin, but his hands float respectfully on the periphery of Elsa's body—he won't touch without permission.

Elsa looks helplessly back and forth between Anna and Rapunzel, who gives an encouraging nod. "Eugene is a great dancer. He can even do it in shoes!"

"Wait, what?" Elsa asks, but the orchestra is starting to play, and suddenly the whole ballroom is looking at the Queen. Anxiety creeps down her spine as frost starts creeping out from around her feet, and Eugene's smile morphs into something softer, more encouraging.

"Hey. I'm not freaking out. Are you freaking out?" he asks, voice surprisingly gentle.

She takes a deep breath, and the ice recedes. "Glide and pivot, right?'

"Something like that," he says, and then his hand is at her waist, and they're dancing.

Anna stares in shock as Elsa slowly makes her way around the ballroom with the Prince Consort. "Wow," she murmurs, wincing at the way she can't quite keep the jealousy from her voice. "He's really good with her."

"Well, he's had a lot of practice," Rapunzel says, and Anna turns to look at her in puzzlement.

"With Elsa?"

"With…" Rapunzel looks away, tracking her husband for a long moment before returning her attention to Anna. "With people who had to hide their magic."

Anna knows that princesses aren't supposed to let their mouths hang open, but Rapunzel looks embarrassed and she can't quite remember how to work her jaw. "You have…?"

"I used to. I lost it—when—" Rapunzel reaches up, hands waving around her shoulder as if trying to touch something, then sighs and touches her neck instead. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"Hey, that's okay. I get it. I mean, I don't  _get it,_ get it, but—I understand. Maybe you and Eugene can stay a few days longer and we can, y'know. Write a treaty or something."

"Actually, about that? We—"

"Princess Anna," Kai interjects, "There is a line."

Anna looks past Rapunzel to the not-exactly-small gathering of dignitaries looking enviously at the dance floor, waiting to be acknowledged so they can get on with their evening, and sighs. She forgot about the part where Elsa dancing meant  _she_ has to do the royalty stuff.

She reaches out and squeezes Rapunzel's arm. "We'll talk later, okay?"

Rapunzel stares at Anna's fingers for a long moment. "Okay."

* * *

Anna is going to be the death of him.

Kristoff's thought it before—recently—but he's more sure of it now than he ever was on the North Mountain. He thought the whole ball thing would be awkward, that she'd make him dance all night, but he hasn't even had  _that_ to suffer through. She's been stuck on her dais saying hi to people for an hour, and he doesn't know anyone else here.

Well, anyone but Olaf, and Olaf had to be taken out of the ballroom because his personal flurry was making the ladies' gowns wet.

A man can only lean casually against a pillar for so long.

Sighing, he looks out at the dance floor, watching the couples pass in endlessly repeating patterns that he could no more commit to memory than Sven could. He casts his eyes down, finding it easier to focus on feet instead of faces, but a tiny flash of green—no, yellow—no, green—catches his eye.

It's Princess Rapunzel's lizard.

"Oh, no," he mumbles as he watches the tiny thing skitter to and fro, trying to stay out of the way of the dancers. It's clearly lost, changing colors in an effort not to get stepped on—which,  _weird,_ but as of a few days ago he's seen weirder—and before he can stop himself he's wading onto the dance floor, dodging and weaving between couples. "Sorry, 'scuse me, sorry, just trying to—uh oh!"

He ducks underneath a duchess as her dance partner twirls her in midair and scoops up the lizard just before it can get squashed forever under some lord's boot.

"Whoa! Look out, little buddy!" he laughs, grateful for being fast enough, and quickly retreats back towards his safe, quiet pillar.

The lizard looks like it's breathing hard, and rapidly shifts between mint and hunter green as it huffs.

" _Thanks for saving me, reindeer man,_ " Kristoff mimics in a high-pitched squeak, and he swears he sees the lizard side-eye him. He presses on.

"No problem, tiny lizard. What was your name… Pascal?"

The thing  _nods._

"How about we get you back to Princess Rapunzel, huh? Have you seen her?"

Pascal points with his tail back towards the throne, and Kristoff looks up. To his surprise, Elsa has replaced Anna on the platform, which means that somewhere, Anna is dancing. Which means that, for better or worse, his hour of boredom is up.

A wet tongue in his ear reminds him that he's supposed to be looking for someone else.

"Gyah!" He cries instinctively, wincing away and trying to make himself smaller as several dignitaries look over at him in confusion. He glares at Pascal. "Rude much? I'm trying to find Rapunzel."

Pascal looks skeptical. " _Looks like you were looking for your girlfriend,_ " Kristoff can't stop himself from narrating, and he wishes he could be normal for like five seconds at a time, because people are staring at him. And—girlfriend? Wait, what?

He scans the ballroom for the periwinkle color Rapunzel was wearing, and has to bite down on a laugh when he spots her. The band's playing one of those fast dances where people change partners a lot, and Anna is currently twirling around Rapunzel, who's for some reason barefoot. They look like they're having the time of their lives.

"Doesn't look safe out there. You'd get stepped on," Kristoff concludes, wondering if he's talking to Pascal or to himself.

* * *

Of course, Anna does find him eventually. She nearly barrels into him because she was sliding on her stockings, but hey, she finds him.

"Easy there," Kristoff chuckles as he takes her by both arms and rights her before she can fall. "Trying to knock me over?"

"Trying to track you down. And look, I did it!" She's breathless and giddy and the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

He clears his throat. "You're gonna wear yourself out with all that dancing."

"Not even possible," she assures him with a wave of her hand in what he's sure she thinks is her 'smooth' voice.

"Oh yeah? Then why's your hair falling out?"

Her eyes go wide as dinner plates. "It's what?" she squeaks, hands flying up to investigate her scalp for bald patches.

"…from your bun," Kristoff clarifies, laughing at her.

She pouts at him. "That was mean. You're  _so_ mean." She won't stop fiddling with her hair now, and he reaches up gently to still her hands.

"No, don't worry about it. It looks good."

"Yeah?" she asks, eyes searching his face for any tells that he's being sarcastic.

He clears his throat. "Yeah. I, uh—I really like it like this."

"Up?"

"Red."

Her smile is shaky, but she still manages to say "It's  _auburn,_ " with a respectable amount of sass.

For a second he just stares at her, because he meant it, she's gorgeous like this, but then the second has turned into more-than-a-second and neither of them have said anything and oh god, one of them has to say something—

"Do you want anything to drink?" "Do you want to dance?" they ask at the same time, then laugh.

"I don't dance," Kristoff says, keeping his voice firm and final.

"Oh, come on—"

"No, I—I don't know the moves. I'd kick someone in the face."

"What about a slow one? Would you dance for a slow one? There are no moves then, all you have to do is turn in place and hold me," she says, and if she's blushing a little harder than she was when she walked over, flushed from dancing, he won't be the one to tell her.

He looks anywhere but her. "…They aren't playing slow ones."

"Gee, too bad you don't know the princess or anything, and have no control over the music. Hold on, I'll go talk to the conductor—"

"Anna, wait!"

She's already gone.

* * *

When Rapunzel finds Eugene, he's regaling a young and impressionable-looking baronet with a Flynn Rider story.

"Then I climbed up the ivy—your castle doesn't have ivy, does it? It's like a built-in rope for thieves that says  _Hi, rob me!_ —and I—oh. Hey, Goldie." He coughs his I'm-a-gentleman cough and gives a slight bow. "Excuse me, gotta talk to the wife."

The baronet wanders away, and Rapunzel giggles. "Is that all I am now? The wife?"

"Hey, it's a good title. Better than  _consort._ I hate that, y'know? I sound like a kept man."

"Aren't you one?"

"Yeah, but I don't like everyone knowing it." They grin at each other, and Rapunzel watches as the tension between his shoulders dissipates. He's gotten so much better at the diplomacy thing, but balls will never be a favorite for either of them. Especially when they have to split up and tag-team them like this.

There's a clap of the hands and then the music changes, the violins playing something soothing and quiet in a slow three-four. Without a word, Eugene's hands are at her hips, and they move together.

* * *

If she's being honest? Anna's really enjoying this whole slow dancing thing. It's just—nice, to be here. Safe and warm in Kristoff's embrace, surrounded by people, with the heat and energy of the crowd and the music filling them, and fresh summer air outside the castle walls.

It's hard to believe that it was only a few days ago that she thought she'd never be warm again.

"This isn't so bad, is it?" she asks his heartbeat, because that's as high as her mouth naturally reaches when they're pressed this close together. (It's going a little faster than it probably should, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't like it.)

"I'm surviving," he reluctantly allows, but when she peeks up at him, he's smiling.

"Well good, because I could stay like this all night."

"Pretty sure you're the only one."

She pouts. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Just—I'm starting to think they only know this one song," he says, jutting his chin towards the orchestra. When she glances over, the conductor catches her eye and gives her a pleading look.

"Oh. Oops. How many times have we…?"

"Three."

"Uh oh." She looks over towards the throne, and Elsa is watching. And laughing at her, though clearly trying to hide it.

Anna sticks out her tongue.

"Do you, uh, want to go outside?" Kristoff asks, looking everywhere but at her. "We could… get some air. Or something."

"I'd like that," she says, stepping back and taking his hand.

As they exit the ballroom, the conductor launches into a reel, looking relieved. But once they're out in the hallway, Anna finds herself at a loss.

She can't bring Kristoff to the gardens, she took  _Hans_ there. She took Hans to the balcony, and the stables, and the lighthouse, and—why did she do that? Why did she open the doors to all of her secret places as if they didn't matter? Where is she supposed to—

"Anna?" Kristoff says her name like it's a question, and she shivers. "Hey, are you—"

"Would you kiss me again? Please?" she asks, and she hates it, hates how scared and desperate she suddenly feels, like the walls are going to fall in on her, but Kristoff is  _here_ and  _solid_ and—

"Yeah," he mumbles, and Kristoff is kissing her.

She all but melts into him, hands clutching at his collar as he holds her close. He doesn't dip her, doesn't raise her in the air. He just keeps his hands at her back, steady and strong, and when he pulls away to give her space, breathing hard, she almost feels like crying.

She opens her mouth to say something, something brilliant and romantic, something memorable, because  _thank you_ just won't cover it.

What comes out is, "Your lips are softer than I thought they'd be."

He blinks at her. "Huh?"

"Um. Your lips. I thought it the other day too, in the market, but we got distracted so I just—anyway. I imagined they'd be…" she gesticulates vaguely into the air, apparently trying to illustrate the word  _chapped_ with a wave of her hands before recovering with, "but they're very soft." The tips of her ears are bright red.

"You imagined…?" he repeats quietly, before shaking himself and frowning. "Hey, wait a minute! I'll have you know that my lips are—rugged. And manly!"

She cracks up, despite herself. "No, you're so right. They're really… macho," she forces out, before giving in to laughter.

"And now she's laughing at me," he complains to the air, because Sven isn't here to back him up.

"I'm sorry, it's just—you're funny."  _Thank you,_ she thinks, over and over.

He harrumphs. "Yeah, well. Are we gonna stand here all night, or can I kiss you again?"

"You don't have to ask permission every time," she says instead, because that's important. That's something he ought to know. "I mean, if—if you don't want."

He bends down, and he doesn't ask.


	2. Chapter 2

Elsa watches from her bedroom window as ship by ship, her visitors leave port. It's very strange, this whole morning after a ball business. All of it is strange. She wishes she knew if she'd done it right.

"This went well, didn't it?" she asks, and Gerda looks up from the laces of Elsa's dress to give a warm smile.

"You were lovely, Majesty."

"Hardly anyone's said anything to me, though. The coronation was supposed to usher in new opportunities for Arendelle, but I fear—"

"None of that," Gerda says sharply, and Elsa laughs. It's absurd, how quickly everyone's caught on. "This is just how these things go. They come, they dance, they report home to their sovereigns and you'll get missives in the weeks to come. They never want to stay and talk business in person unless they need something or they're trying to avoid war." She considers that a moment. "Or start one, I s'pose."

Elsa wishes she could remember it more clearly. Her parents had hosted balls in the past, back before they closed the gate, but she'd been so young, then. Her memories consist of their own family rituals—a dance with Papa in fancy clothes, and then off to bed.

She wonders if Anna remembers at all.

"Has anyone stayed for negotiations?" she asks instead, trying to mentally plan her day.

"Let's see. You'll need to ask Kai for the complete list, but I know that the Duke of Apulia is still here, and a delegation from Delphos. Oh, and that young couple from Corona, they'll not leave until they have an audience."

Maybe she's just being paranoid, but Elsa can't help but think that sounds ominous. "Why not?"

She'd thought they liked her. All at once, she can feel the phantom weight of the Prince Consort's hands at her waist, in her grasp.  _Are you freaking out?_ He'd been… kind. She'd seen Anna and Rapunzel talking together several times over the course of the evening. She's worrying over nothing, she must be.

"I'm just the staff, Majesty," Gerda chuckles, graciously ignoring the sudden frost on the window pane. "It's not for me to say."

Elsa doesn't see what that has to do with anything, but it will have to do for now.

* * *

At breakfast, Rapunzel and Eugene are informed that they've been invited to have tea with the Queen at noon, but that leaves hours to kill. One of the butlers tells them which parts of the castle are open to visitors, so they wander from room to room, hand in hand.

"You're casing the place, aren't you?" Rapunzel asks when she notices Eugene's wandering eye.

His back stiffens. "What? No."

"You totally are. You're figuring out what you'd steal if you were Flynn Rider-ing."

He lets go of her hand and snatches the tiara off the top of her head, dancing out of reach before she can grab it back. "If I were  _Flynn Rider-ing,_ the only thing I'd want is this," he smirks, spinning it on his finger. "Best decision I ever made, stealing this thing."

"Eugene, give it back!" she orders, but her laughter rings from the rafters.

"Make me."

"Eugene!" She stops her foot this time, but it's hard to be taken seriously when you're mid-way through a giggle fit.

"Sorry, not very convincing. Gonna have to catch me," he says, and then he bolts down the hallway. She starts after him, tripping over herself.

"Hey, not fair, you know I can't run in heels!"

"Not my problem!" he says before disappearing around the corner. Brow scrunching, she steps out of her shoes and gives chase. He's had two and a half decades of running for his life to hone his skills, but then, she's had a lifetime of being cooped up to make up for, and she's faster than she looks. She turns the corner just in time to spot him passing through a heavy wooden door, but when she follows him in she slams forcefully into his back.

"Ow! Why'd you… whoa."

" _Right?_ "

Now she can see why he stopped. The room they're in isn't quite so big as the ballroom they were in last night, but it's decked from floor to ceiling in paintings—paintings of every style and subject imaginable. Her mother and father have a few pieces in their own castle, but they're mostly of family members, portraits and the like. Nothing like this. She hasn't been surrounded by this much art since she was in her tower.

"These," Eugene breathes after a long moment. "I'd steal these."

* * *

Kristoff is bored.

Well, no, bored is the wrong word. He feels… restless. Elsa offering him a room at the castle is a huge thing, he knows that, but he almost never stays so long in one place. Especially in the summer, when ice is in high demand and he can rarely make two trips to the same place for it. Anna's been a pretty fabulous distraction so far, but he also hasn't seen her all morning, and, well.

Okay. Fine. He misses her.

He doesn't yet know the castle well enough to check her usual haunts, but when he asks Gerda where he can find her, all she says is that Anna isn't much of a morning person. Which—it's nearing 10 o'clock, nobody can sleep  _that_ long. Anna would barely let him rest when they were traveling up the North Mountain; he wasn't sure she believed in sleep. Not even  _dying_ slowed her down for long.

Only now he's standing at her bedroom door and thinking about her dying, and he kind of needs to check on her, like, thirty seconds ago.

"Anna?" he asks, with a firm knock. "Are you in there?"

When she doesn't answer immediately, he frowns. "Anna? It's me. Um. Kristoff. Are you awake?"

No response.

As slowly as he would step on thin ice, he puts his hand on the doorknob and turns. It's not locked. Wincing and leaning away with his eyes squeezed shut—she could be  _changing_ or something, he doesn't know—he opens the door. "Anna?"

Silence.

Hesitantly, he peeks open one eye, and then the other. Her curtains are drawn, so he has to blink to get used to the darkness, but he can't help but smile once his eyes adjust.

She's still out cold, sprawled out on the bed as if she's been trying to conquer it in her dreams. Hair teased out like a lion's mane, short limbs every which way… she's adorable. He shouldn't be surprised that she tackles sleeping with the same sort of full-tilt enthusiasm she does everything else.

 _Okay Kristoff,_ he thinks,  _close the door and be on your way. You'll see her later._

His feet don't seem to get the message, and before he can stop himself he's on the other side of the room, gently shaking Anna by the shoulder. "Hey. Time to get up, feistypants."

"Hrrmmm," she grumbles, batting his hand away like a cat. He laughs.

"Anna, get up. Come on, I'm bored."

"Mmmmrrrrgggghhh… 'ristoff?" she mumbles, peering up at him through squinted eyes. She blinks once, and then again, like she's trying to focus. Then she sits bolt upright, carrying the blankets with her. "Kristoff?! I—what time is it?"

"Almost ten. You missed breakfast."

"I'm the princess, it's always breakfast. But why—what—you're not supposed to be in here!"

"Do you want me to leave?" he asks, and he means it as a joke but there's a catch in his voice that gives her pause.

She doesn't want him to leave. She wants to roll over and go back to sleep, mostly, but—but what she really wants, if she's being honest, is for Kristoff to get under the covers with her. To pull him down and snuggle up to him, and have him stroke her hair back until her eyes fall shut again and their breathing evens out.

She wants to see the anxiety in his eyes disappear, because he's looking at her kind of funny, like he's expecting her to vanish out from under him unless he pays attention, and maybe if she can draw him into her drowsy cocoon she can sleep his worry away.

"…Anna?"

"Hmmm?"

"You're… drooling."

Her mouth clicks shut and she wipes at her face, mortified. "Sorry. I'm—were you talking?"

"Kind of."

"Sorry. I'm still half-asleep?" She gives him her best apologetic princess look, and he snorts.

"Come on, Little Miss Sassy. Let's get your day started."

"Little Miss Sassy? What happened to feistypants?"

"I'm allowed to call you more than one thing if I want," he shrugs, offering her a hand, and she takes it to lever herself up and off the bed. He turns his head, cheeks coloring, and she belatedly remembers that she's in nothing but a nightgown.

Oops.

"You know, you're supposed to call me Your Highness," she points out as she steps behind her privacy screen, just to see what he'll say back.

He laughs. "You'd never let me."

* * *

Queen Elsa takes her tea without sugar or cream, and Rapunzel feels almost childish as she turns her own cup into a sweet, milky mess. Surely it's not the most regal choice…? But then again, Eugene doesn't even drink tea, he just likes hot water with lemon, so at least she's not as bad as he is. If not drinking tea plain is bad. She doesn't know.

It's all very quiet.

"So how can I help you?" Elsa asks, interrupting the gentle rhythm of spoons against china, and Eugene and Rapunzel look at each other with twin  _I don't want to tell her, do you want to tell her?_ expressions. Her eyes flit to his wedding ring.  _You're the husband._ He flicks his gaze up to her crown.  _You're the princess._

Elsa wonders if they know how transparent they are, but it's putting her more and more at ease by the second. She has no stomach for subterfuge anymore, and from what she can tell, they don't have the capacity.

At long last, Eugene coughs. "Well, y'see, your Majesty, it's about our boat. It… it kind of…"

"Yes?"

"You sort of—it sunk. A little. With the ice storm?" He turns helplessly to Rapunzel, who takes pity on him.

"It's not your fault, Majesty. Our captain was taking it around the fjord the evening of the ball, so it was in deeper waters than the others when it… when you… well. It seems to have capsized? He's fine—the captain, I mean—so there's really no harm done."

Elsa's head is spinning. "Seems to?"

Eugene's smile is apologetic. "Well, we had a ship, and now we don't, so we think it must be at the bottom of the fjord."

The tea in Elsa's cup is frozen solid. "I… I am  _so sorry_ …" She doesn't know how to do this, how to get through this conversation or be the queen or stay calm, somehow she has to stay calm and not feel like—not  _feel—_

"Elsa?" a soft voice cuts through the din in her head.

It should have been  _your majesty,_ but there's nothing majestic about her, in this moment, and the gratitude she feels towards Rapunzel for seeing that is indescribable.

There's snow in Rapunzel's hair.

"We don't want to overstay our welcome, and we're happy to get a room in town, or—or whatever you'd prefer, really. The ship doesn't matter, we're just unfortunately under your feet until we can figure things out. So we thought you should know."

Elsa breathes in, sharply. "I see. Would… would you care to join me and my sister for dinner tonight? We could discuss everything then, come to a decision that works best for all of us."  _You're the queen_ , she reminds herself.  _Act like it_. "You can tell me all about how things are going in Corona."

"I would love that!" Rapunzel agrees, bouncing a little in her seat. "Thank you."

* * *

Okay, Anna will admit it. She had wanted to spend the whole day with Kristoff. But she's not actually used to getting what she wants, is the thing, and now it's happening, like, a  _ton,_ all at once. And she doesn't really know what to do with that?

"Are we having fun yet?" Kristoff deadpans, and she kicks a stockinged foot at him.

"Of course we are! … Aren't we?"

They're nestled in a corner of the castle's rather spacious library—Anna tucked into her favorite chair, Kristoff on the floor using a cushion he'd pulled off a chaise as a pillow. His head is just beyond her reach, and she's starting to think he did that on purpose.

He shrugs. "Watching you read isn't exactly my idea of the best time."

"Sorry, I'm… not used to picking activities that entertain two people at once," Anna admits, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Kristoff frowns, sitting up on his elbows.

"No—I just meant—"

"But why didn't you pick out a book for yourself?" she asks, brightening just as quickly as she'd dimmed. "I'm sure we have something you'd like."

"Anna—"

"There's all sorts of stuff in here. I spent half my childhood in these stacks, and I've probably only read a third of them. Granted, that's partly because I'd always go back and reread my favorites, but—"

"Hey!" he shouts, and the finality of it stops her. "It's just—I don't read."

"Oh, nonsense. People who don't like to read just haven't found the right book."

He scrubs a hand down his face. "No, Anna. I  _don't read._ "

She looks at him a long moment, and he can feel himself blushing. "You mean… you can't?"

"I can! Just… not…" He sits up, embarrassed. "I keep a ledger for my business, I can follow signs. But the trolls aren't exactly known for their libraries."

Anna puts down her book and slips out of her chair, kneeling next to him and covering his hand in hers. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel… different."

"We  _are_ different, Anna. You're a princess. I'm—"

Anna doesn't let him tell her what he thinks he is, but after the first touch of her soft lips to his own, he doesn't seem to feel like talking.

* * *

Kai Anderson, for better or worse, really does enjoy his job.

Royal handling is not for the faint of heart, and though he doesn't like to boast, he knows his particular tasks have been more trying than most. Many handlers have lost their sovereigns and had to guide crown princes and princesses to the throne, but to have kept such secrets…

But it was worth it, for the girls. And to see Elsa and Anna reunited, for the veil of sadness and silence to be lifted so spectacularly, has warmed his heart. He'd never dared dream their story would end happily. Change, he is learning, is good.

Though of course, some things never change, which is why he's not surprised to find Anna on the floor in the library, snuggled in a small fort made out of pillows and blankets. She's reading aloud, as he's heard her do a thousand times before, but—ah. An audience, that's new.

He clears his throat. "Ma'am? It's time for dinner."

"Oh!" she laughs, getting up, and Kai hides a smile as he watches Kristoff scramble onto his feet. The boy may be a newcomer, but he's not completely hopeless—he already knows that when the princess stands, no one sits. That's something.

"I'll just, um… go feed Sven, I guess," he mumbles, and Anna's brow furrows in confusion.

"Why? Aren't you coming to dinner?"

He stares at his shoes. "Anna, I don't think I'm invited."

"What? That's crazy. You're totally invited. Kai, tell him he's invited!" She turns to Kai, eyes wide. "I mean. He is invited, right?"

"Your sister did seem to be expecting him, yes," Kai says, managing to keep the chuckle out of his voice.

"Ha! See? You are invited," Anna crows, attaching herself to Kristoff's arm and marching him out of the room. As she passes Kai, he hears her mutter "You're  _always_ invited. Okay?"

They're in front of him, now, so he allows his smile to bloom in full.

* * *

Elsa is waiting for them outside the banquet hall, which—weird. Granted, seeing Elsa at all still feels kind of weird, but it's not like she needs to wait for Anna to sit down. She's the queen now; she doesn't have to wait for anyone.

"Kristoff, you made it!" Elsa says warmly, and Anna gives his arm a squeeze. "Do you mind going in and keeping Princess Rapunzel and her husband company? I need to talk to Anna for a moment. Privately."

"Oh, uh. Sure," he murmurs, pulling out of Anna's grip before she can protest. It's practically on her lips— _whatever you have to say, you can say to both of us—_ but then she remembers, and the words catch in her throat _._  Kai escorts him past the doors, leaving the sisters alone in the hallway.

"So, what's up?" Anna asks, scratching at her arm. ( _My sister would never hurt me,_ she remembers 's probably what she should have said the first time.)

Elsa opens her mouth, paces two steps to the left, then returns to her original position by the door. "You spent time with Rapunzel last night, right? You liked her?"

"I did. Elsa, what's this about?" Anna can't help but notice that the temperature has dropped a few degrees.

"I sunk their ship. Kai told me that one of the vessels was lost in the harbor, but I'd hoped it was one of ours. It wasn't; it belonged to Rapunzel and Eugene."

"Are they mad?"

"No! That's the strangest part. I have spent my day in meetings with people from all sorts of places—we are  _never_ going to Delphos, by the way—and they were all demanding at best and hostile at worst. Princess Rapunzel actually had a reason to be, but she was completely understanding. I lost control of my powers at tea and they didn't even flinch."

Anna's struggling to keep up. "And that's a bad thing? Elsa, why are we in the hallway?"

"I want your advice," Elsa says, and all Anna can do is blink, because that's a first. "The way I see it, we have two options. We could either lend them one of our ships to get home, which I'm of half a mind to do just so we can get our lives back, or…"

"Or?"

"Or we could offer to let them stay with us until we can repair their ship. I'm partial to that plan for Arendelle's sake, because with Weselton and the Southern Isles no longer trading with us—and that's before you take into account anyone else I've managed to offend just by existing—we need all the allies we can get. Rapunzel and Eugene seem like good people, and offering them hospitality could go a long way. But…"

Anna's shoulders slump, because she sees where Elsa's going with this. "But Hans seemed like good people, too."

Elsa places a hand on her arm, cool but calming. "And that's why I'm leaving the decision up to you. Because while letting them stay may be what's best for Arendelle, I also want to do what's best for, um." Elsa looks away, uncharacteristically shy. "For you. For us. We haven't had… time together. So if you would rather we have the castle to ourselves again, or if their presence here makes you nervous, they're gone. Okay?"

It's warm in the hallway again. "I don't really have the best track record when it comes to trusting the right people," Anna admits.

Elsa swallows, and tries on a smile. "You trusted me, and that worked out."

"I  _trust_  you," Anna corrects. "Present tense. Jeez, try and keep up, okay?"

"Anna!" Elsa laughs, but hey,  _laughing,_ so worth it—"Focus."

Anna leans away to peek through the ajar door back into the banquet hall. Rapunzel is happily chatting away with Olaf, and Kristoff and Eugene seem to be arm wrestling, elbows dangerously close to what Anna knows to be their finer dinnerware.

"If we let them stay, we have to tell them everything," she says slowly, because she's still not sure whether she's learning from past mistakes or just repeating them. If she's going to mess up, she'd rather she do it honestly, and with Elsa's approval. "Like, I know they  _know,_ but the whole story. Start to finish. If they're supposed to be our friends—or, I mean, our trade partners—then I don't want to have to hide anything."

"Open doors," Elsa agrees, "It's settled." She moves towards the doorway, but Anna reaches out for her hand, stopping her.

"Wait, no. Not settled. I'm so dumb, it—Elsa, she has magic."

Frost gathers where their palms connect. "W-what?"

"Rapunzel. Sorry, I'm slow," Anna says, unsticking their hands and flexing her fingers as carelessly as she would if her arm had fallen asleep. "I only just put it together that you thought it was suspicious that she wasn't worried about the ice, but I get it now. Anyway, that's why they weren't surprised. She has magic. Or had, I don't know, she wasn't clear. She said she wasn't supposed to talk about it."

"When did she tell you this?" Elsa asks, reeling. Staring at Anna's hand like it will fall off any second.

"When you were dancing with Eugene." Following Elsa's sightline, Anna gives a thumbs up, then marches around to Elsa's other side. "So are we gonna eat dinner, or what?"

_I'm not freaking out. Are you freaking out?_

Elsa takes a deep breath. "Yeah. I mean. Yes. Looks like we're not the only ones who have a whole story to tell."

They push the door fully open together.


	3. Chapter 3

Anna can't sleep.

This happens, sometimes, where she'll sleep in one day and then have trouble falling asleep the next night. She's just… bad at moderation, probably, but she hasn't pulled a full all-nighter in ages. Since the weeks after her parents died, when she'd take to her bed for days at a time and then lurk the castle endlessly, looking for… she still doesn't know. Just looking, maybe.

But tonight she's not the least bit tired, and her head is full of so many things.

_This is the story of how I died._

She wonders if she'll use that as her own opening line one day, when she tells people about what happened this week. The thought intrigues and terrifies her. How did Eugene learn to do that? How did he make it a story, separate from himself?

Does he dream about it still?

She thinks about the look on Elsa's face, when Rapunzel had told them of her mother's rough pregnancy and the life-giving flower that had given her hair its magic. Elsa had hidden it well, but Anna's kind of an expert at reading Elsa's expressions (or well, she's the closest thing to an expert Arendelle has) and she'd seen the disappointment there, the sadness. Elsa had wanted answers about the source of her own gifts, and Rapunzel had none to give.

Outside her window, the Northern Lights paint the sky in undulating waves. The last time her grandfather clock had chimed, it had been four, but that was a while ago now. She just can't stop  _thinking._

Is life like this for everyone?

She thinks about the ball last night, and the coronation before it, and imagines all those people having stories like hers, like Eugene's. Who's to say what may happen behind the closed doors of other kingdoms? What adventures had shaped the dignitaries whose hands she'd held as she was passed around the room in promenades?

How many of them were nursing powers of their own? How many been hidden away, like Elsa? Kidnapped, like Rapunzel? Ignored, like her, like—

Like Hans.

She wonders if Rapunzel knows how  _lucky_ she was, that it was Eugene who found her in that tower. Flynn Rider may have been a thief and a scoundrel, but Eugene is loyal, and funny, and sweet. He'd hidden that person under layers of grime to protect himself, but Hans had done the opposite, creating a Nice Guy act that could be dropped at the slightest provocation. Anna hadn't seen through it, and if he'd fooled her, what chance would Rapunzel have had?

It's horrifyingly easy to imagine how a prince like Hans could have swept Rapunzel away and kept her to himself, spinning her about because her head had already been filled with a lifetime of lies. He could have used her for her crown, for her hair, for—for her body. It would never have occurred to her to run.

How differently might things have turned out if Anna had knocked into Kristoff and Sven at the docks, instead of Hans and his horse? Why couldn't fate have been so kind with her, as it had been to Rapunzel?

But she can't think like that, because Elsa is alive,  _Anna's_ alive, she stopped the sword in time and got to come back from it, and changing even one variable could change the whole ending. And she'd had a relationship with Hans—if you could call it that—for only a few days. Only a single night of his actual company. Rapunzel had lived under Mother Gothel's twisted thumb for eighteen years, and that was hardly a kindness on fate's part.

The sky is graying and lightening over the mountains to the east, and she knows it won't be long until the day begins anew.

Anna always has loved sunrises.

* * *

When Elsa arrives at the banquet hall at half past seven, she finds Anna already sitting at the table, fully dressed and tracing light circles around the rim of her juice glass. The picture is so  _Anna,_ so normal, yet so painfully foreign to Elsa that she can actually feel the squeeze of pressure in her chest as her heart aches. They could have had this. For years, they could have had this.

She swallows the feeling and takes her seat at the end of the table, putting on a smile. "You're up early," she notes, and Anna jumps.

"Oh! Good morning. Um, yeah. Well—not really. I'm actually up late; I never slept."

Now that she mentions it, Elsa can see there are indeed dark shadows under Anna's bright eyes, invisible to the untrained observer. Even on her older face, it's a familiar look to Elsa—Anna's sleep schedule had often been tied to the auroras in their youth, and last night they had been breathtaking.

"Did the sky keep you awake?" she asks, wondering, hoping this is something Anna can remember. That Anna knows  _she_ remembers.

Anna's smile is like the dawn. "Just a little. You know me," she shrugs, but Elsa can hear the pleased relief in her voice.

Feeling daring, Elsa waves her fingers, summoning a ladleful of fruit salad to her plate on an icy wind. Anna watches, enthralled, and whistles her appreciation when not so much as a berry spills onto the tablecloth. Elsa grins. "So what did you do all night?" she asks, and she's not thinking about unbuilt snowmen, she's not thinking about that night in the ballroom, she's not. She's  _here_ , with her sister, and she can chill her fruit as much as she wants.

"Nothing much. Thought a lot. Rapunzel and Eugene are something, huh?"

"They certainly gave us a lot to consider last night," Elsa agrees. "I'm glad they decided to stay in the castle until we can repair their ship. I think we can learn a lot from each other."

Anna nods, then reaches over to grab a pastry from the large serving dish in front of them. "And um, how exactly are we going to repair their ship when it's at the bottom of the fjord?"

"Well, I'm going to… raise it."

The bite Anna'd been taking falls inelegantly from her mouth, and Elsa stifles a laugh. "What, with your powers?"

"It's not like we have any other choice."

"That's—that's amazing! You're going to let me watch, right? No way are you allowed to do that unless I'm there."

Elsa had actually been planning to raise the ship under the cover of darkness. Skating rinks in the castle courtyard were one thing, but to lift a ship from the depths of the harbor on a platform of ice in front of the whole kingdom? It felt like asking for trouble. The last time they saw her by the docks she froze the whole fjord over.

But Anna is staring at her with unrestrained awe, her eyes saying  _Do the magic, do the magic!_  like they haven't done in years. And maybe if Anna's there, things won't have a chance to go sideways.

"Wouldn't dream of doing it without you," she says, and it's the truth.

Kai gives a cough from the door on the other end of the hall. "Princess Rapunzel and Mr. Fitzherbert have arrived; shall I show them in?"

"Please," Elsa says, and the couple from Corona walk in holding hands which is, frankly, adorable.

"Ooh, Eugene—strawberries!" Rapunzel gasps when she sees the spread on the table, and lets go of him so she can get to the food faster. He chuckles and shakes his head before joining her at a decidedly more reasonable pace. As he sits, he brushes her hair back and pulls her towards him to kiss her on the temple before grabbing for some toast.

Elsa's gaze flits over to Anna, and she can tell by the look on her sister's face that she's studying them, too. It's been a long time since they've seen anything so… domestic. And their parents, while much in love, had never been so demonstrative. It's weird. A good weird.

"Did you sleep well?" Elsa asks, trying to be a mindful host.

Rapunzel nods. "Did we ever! The room you've given us is lovely; even the chairs are comfortable."

"You slept in chairs?" Anna asks, scrunching her nose.

"Oh, um, we didn't— _sleep—_ we…"

Eugene suddenly dissolves into a spectacular coughing fit, and Rapunzel thumps his back, blushing. "Majesty," he wheezes, turning to Elsa and plastering on a wide, fake smile, "what  _were_ those lights in the sky last night? Rapunzel has a thing about floating lights, and we are both ever so curious. Tell me all about it. In great detail."

Blessedly, they're all saved from themselves by a chipper voice calling from the hallway. "Ready or not, here I cooooooome!"

Olaf all but crashes through the doors, giving Kai precious little time to step out of the way. The snowman wanders the banquet hall on his stubby snowball legs, and Anna and Rapunzel giggle as he ducks under the table, apparently looking for something. "Oh, come on! I know he went this way."

"Looking for somebody, Olaf?" Anna asks, and he blinks up at her before smiling wide.

"Yeah, why?"

"Can you tell me who it is?"

"Yeah, why?"

They stare at each other for a long moment, but she breaks first. "Well, who is it?"

"Oh! Um. It's not a big deal, nobody panic _,_ but… I may have lost Pascal," Olaf admits, tapping his little branch-fingers together in a semblance of concern before turning this way and that. Anna spots Pascal clinging to the snowman's back, his scales a bright white, and bites back a laugh.

"Don't worry about it, Olaf. Pascal is really good at hide and seek, but I'm sure you'll find him soon," Rapunzel assures him.

Eugene snorts. "He's a chameleon, of course he's going to be the best at hide and seek," he points out, before taking a long drag of coffee. Rapunzel glares at him; she looks about as intimidating as a newborn puppy.

"Excuse you, I didn't say  _the best,_ I said really good.  _I'm_ the best at hide and seek. I beat him best twenty-two out of forty-three last time we played."

"Twenty-two?" Olaf gasps. "What if I never find him?"

"Don't give up," Anna tells him, getting out of her chair so she can look him in the eye. She gives him her most encouraging smile. "I'm sure he's only just out of sight."

Rapunzel giggles. "Or right around the corner!"

"It's always the last place you look," Eugene adds lazily, and Elsa rolls her eyes at all of them.

"The important thing," she says, "is that you not give up before you've even begun."

"Okay, okay. I'll keep looking. Thanks for your help!" Olaf says, and then he wanders out the other door, towards the north wing. As he leaves, Elsa waves her hand at him, a new cloud following him into the hallway.

"What was that for?" Anna asks as she sits back down, and Elsa flushes.

"I was adjusting the temperature of his flurry. Pascal's cold-blooded, I don't want to freeze the little guy." Looking embarrassed, she clears her throat and drinks the last of her tea. "Unfortunately, I have things to attend to, but I hope you all have a good morning. Anna, why don't you give our guests a tour of the castle?"

"Sure, I can do that. Is there anything special you guys want to see?"

"Can we go back to the paintings room?" Rapunzel asks eagerly.

Anna blinks. "The gallery? Absolutely, I love it in there. But, um," she turns to Elsa, "do you think we should wait for Kristoff? He hasn't eaten yet."

"He has, actually. Kristoff won't be able to join you until later in the afternoon; I have him out on official business. He's helping the harbormaster locate Rapunzel and Eugene's ship in the fjord."

"Why?" Last Anna checked, Kristoff was more of an ice guy than a water guy.

Elsa won't meet her eyes. "He was… the last person to see the ship before it went down."

"You mean, he watched it sink?"

"From the way he tells it—and I have no reason not to believe him—it capsized right on top of him." Elsa smiles weakly, wishing to soothe the stricken look on Anna's face. "We have a lot to be thankful for, but I'll be keeping his reindeer friend in carrots for a very long time for being as swift as he is."

"Reindeer friend?" Rapunzel asks, perking up, and as Anna starts extolling Sven's virtues, Elsa takes her leave of the breakfast party.

* * *

Kristoff rests his head in his folded arms as he leans over the side of the boat he's in, trying desperately not to be seasick.

He hates water.

He knows that's weird thing for an ice harvester to say, but even at face value there, water's kind of the enemy. Water means you picked a bad spot, or the season's over, or you fell through. Water means failure.

Which is all why he's never been on the fjord before. Over it, sure, on bridges or docks, with solid planks connected to other solid planks under his feet. But like this? Never.

He's really not a fan of floating.

"Are we getting close, Mr. Bjorgman?" the harbormaster asks, and he groans before lifting his head up.

"Um," he says, stalling as he tries to orient himself, looking towards the castle and then behind him, to the North Mountain, "yeah, but we're still too far west. I rode down from the pass, not through the village."

Honestly, it feels like an impossible task to get his bearings on a clear summer day when, in his mind's eye, the fjord is still frozen and he's snowblind and hurtling towards Anna at breakneck speeds. He'd barely been paying attention to where he was going other than making sure that it was  _forward,_ because she needed him.

But Elsa asked him to find the ship, so he'll find the ship.

It's the least he can do.

* * *

Elsa hadn't been lying, she does have work to do, but she keeps getting distracted. Reflections of the early afternoon sun play off the baubles and trinkets in her office and keep getting in her eyes, and she swears the sunlight through the window is shining just the right way to create a spotlight on the chess set in the corner.

She hates and loves that chess set in the corner, its marble pieces having long since gathered dust, poised in the midst of a war only half-waged.

This had once been her father's study, her father's desk, and the chess game had once been their private indulgence, back in a life long gone. She had not been allowed out of her room except for meals and lessons, but if Papa was available, they'd sneak into his study and play a few brief exchanges before whisking her off to her next location. He even let her play black, because he knew how sick she was of being surrounded by white all the time.

It was Papa's move, when he and Mama got on that boat for their two week diplomatic tour. He'd meant to leave a real puzzler for Elsa to figure out while he was gone, but she'd sneaked into the study and taken his rook the night before, hoping he'd see it in the morning before he left. But he hadn't, and then two weeks stretched into three, and then four…

The bodies were never recovered. It's a miracle that any word of their parents' demise reached them at all, really. But even now, sometimes it feels like the only tangible evidence that they're dead is the stupid chess set in the study.

They're gone because the pieces have not moved. The pieces have not moved because they're gone.

Elsa has not played a game of chess in three years.

Abandoning her paperwork for now, because she's clearly not going to get any of it done in the state of mind she's in, she walks over and examines the chess board for the first time in ages. Squinting at the pieces, she tries to imagine the move her father would have made, had he returned—he'd always been a careful general, perhaps overly cautious, sacrificing pawns left and right to defend the king and queen. It seems absurdly metaphorical now, but as a teenager she'd never been the best at seeing outside herself. She couldn't have exploited those tendencies even if she'd noticed them.

She wonders if Anna knows how to play chess.

Probably not, because chess requires patience and forethought, and Anna's never had vast reserves of either. No, chess was hers and Papa's; she's sure Anna and their father had their own games and rituals, their own quiet moments. Or, she hopes they did.

If she closes her eyes, she can imagine what a chess game with Anna would be like. Anna would insist on being black because white goes first and Elsa's the eldest, it's her right—and then she would lead her knights across the board in increasingly linear patterns, protesting any time Elsa'd try to correct her.  _Have you_ _ **met**_ _a horse?_ Anna would ask,  _because they really don't like jumping in more than one direction at a time, last I checked. Horses go straight or not at all. Or I mean, what do I know, you're better at riding than me, but 'up and to the left' just doesn't feel like a very horse-y movement, you know?_

It's freezing in here.

Elsa takes a deep breath and grounds herself, because there's snow on her shoulders. It's still so easy to forget: she doesn't have to imagine Anna anymore, she doesn't have to have conversations in her head. Her sister is her own again. The past is in the past, and now they can move forward. Like Anna's knights.

She resets the pieces in quick, careful movements, until they're neat and ordered armies on opposite ends of a battlefield once more. Waiting to be told where to go, what to do.

A fresh start seems like the right move, today.

* * *

"How come there are so many?" Rapunzel asks in an appropriately reverential tone, and Anna hesitates. When they'd first walked in, Rapunzel had run from painting to painting, getting up close and to inspect the minute details. This quickly overwhelmed her, however, which is how they ended up in their current position: sitting on the floor in the middle of the gallery, backs to each other in a circle to let Rapunzel take in all the art at once.

"Um, because of me, I guess," she says, biting her lip.

Rapunzel gasps, pivoting her whole body to look Anna in the face. "You  _painted_ these?"

Anna knows it's rude, but the suggestion is so absurd that she breaks into nervous laughter. "Wait, what? No. I mean, gosh no, that would be— _no._ That would be a bad idea. I just liked them. We only had a few in here when I was little, but after…" She trails off, unsure of herself. Even after telling the whole story last night, it feels strangely sacrilegious to talk about her estrangement from Elsa. Like a—a jinx. "Anyway, I would come in here a lot. There weren't many people to talk to in the castle, but in here? In these paintings, I could go anywhere. Meet anyone. Mama used to find me in here daydreaming all the time when I was supposed to be in lessons, and after a while it seemed like there was a new piece every time I looked."

Over the course of her speech, Eugene had turned around to let his hand rest over the top of Rapunzel's where she braced herself against the floor, his fingers fitting into the grooves between hers protectively. Anna wonders why, until—

"I used to do that too," Rapunzel admits. "Sort of, anyway. I wasn't ever allowed out of my tower, but when I painted… it was like I could bring the outside in. My, um.  _Gothel_ was careful about the kinds of things she'd let me have—I only could keep three books at a time, and she never brought me art—but once I learned how to mix my own paints, she would help find new ingredients. If I'd been good."

"Do you still paint?" Anna asks. She thinks about Elsa, and gloves, and how sometimes the things that got you through the hard times are the last things you want to see when they're over. But Rapunzel only beams.

"Oh, all the time! My parents even let me paint the walls of my bedroom; it was so boring in there, I couldn't stand it. I was going to paint Eugene's room, too, but we got married before I got the chance."

Eugene mouths  _Tragedy_ at Anna with a mournful look, and she turns her snort into an almost lady-like laugh. "We should get you some paints and stuff while you're here. And probably some canvas, too—I don't know how Elsa would like it if I let you paint on the walls."

"Ooh, I could teach you how! That would be so fun. But what do you do, if you don't paint?"

"Me? Nothing. I mean. I do  _things,_ I just don't do… I don't have, um. Talents. A talent. As such."

"Sure you do," Rapunzel says. "You must. Everybody's good at something. I have friends who play music, and knit, and do interior design… Eugene steals things!"

Eugene gasps, mock-offended. "That's all you can think of? Eugene  _steals things?_  I'm hurt."

"Well you told me I wasn't supposed to talk about the other stuff in front of people!"

"What? When did I say that? There's lots of other stuff about me worth talking about. I'm devilishly handsome, that's a talent. I've never once nicked myself shaving. I even—why are you laughing?" he demands, because Rapunzel's dissolved into a total giggle fit.

"No, Eugene," she chokes, "the  _other stuff._ "

Anna blinks and looks back and forth between them as they both grow red, and finally (give her a break, okay, she's been awake for twenty-four hours, now) puts two and two together. "Wait, are you guys talking about sex?"

* * *

Kristoff wavers a bit as he walks down the castle hallway, feeling unsteady on his feet and green around the gills. His stomach still doesn't seem to understand that he's back on dry land, and even his knees are having trouble adjusting.

No more boats. Ever.

There are two guards outside Elsa's office door, which is a pretty good indicator that she's in there. They don't make him nervous, or anything—he's taller than both of them—but he does feel awkward, knocking in front of them. His knocks aren't clean and short, like Kai's are; his fist just kind of goes  _thunk._ "Uh, Elsa?" He coughs, self-conscious about using her name in front of the guards, but she told him to call her that.

"Come in," Elsa says, but he doesn't—he's fine just opening the door and sticking his head in.

"I just wanted to let you know that we found the ship, and we set up a buoy to let you know where it is. So, um… yeah. That's it. Sorry to bother you."

"You haven't bothered me yet," Elsa assures him, stepping out from behind her desk, then smiles in a way that reminds him of Anna. "Though now you're covered in advance, if you were planning to. Please, come in."

He takes one last backward glance at the guards before shuffling in sideways and closing the door behind him. Elsa's office is big, bigger than some of the cabins he's lived in, and there's a large painting of her father on one of the walls. It's not  _creepy,_  exactly, but it's definitely… he knows he wouldn't like it, feeling watched all the time.

(But maybe it would be nice to be watched over. If there's a difference. Either way, he wouldn't know.)

Elsa follows his gaze, and breathes out in a way that reminds him of a laugh, but isn't. "I know. No pressure, right?" she jokes, but it's as weak as her attempted chuckle.

"Does it bother you? I don't think I could stand it if I had to work under a—sorry. That's not the kind of—I mean, we probably shouldn't talk about—" He cuts himself off, huffing in frustration. "Sorry," he says again. "I'm still not really used to… people."

"Hey. I'm not, either," Elsa says, and he has to stop himself from slapping his own face in embarrassment. He keeps forgetting. And like… it's not so much that he looks at her and sees  _queen_ as it is he looks at her and sees the terrified girl Grandpabbie tried to talk to, the woman who was hunched over Anna's body in the ice palace looking like an animal in a trap. Or a cage.

He doesn't know her. He doesn't know how to be around her. But he'd like to.

"It doesn't bother me," she finally says, and he startles, because he lost track of the fact that they were having a conversation. "Not as much as it did a few days ago, anyway. Before, all I saw was the responsibility, but now… he looks nervous, don't you think?"

He peers up at the face of the King, and there's a wideness to his eyes, a small furrow in his painted brow that reminds Kristoff of the worried father he'd seen in the dark, all those years ago. "Yeah. Yeah, I see it."

She smiles at him, and her shoulders set. "So. Have they cleared a spot in the docks for me to leave the ship?"

"They were in the middle of doing that when I left. The harbormaster's not letting anyone sail after three. You'll have a clear shot."

"Then I guess we better track down Anna so I can get started." She moves towards the exit, and he waits to follow—if ladies go first, queens probably shouldn't go through the same halls as him at all—but she pauses by the door, eyes caught on something. "Do you play chess, Kristoff?"

"Um. Is that the one with the disks, or the one with the castles?"

"Castles."

"No, but then, neither one's really popular with the harvesters. They… I mean,  _we_ , play card games when there's time, because you can just keep 'em in your pocket. Never chess. The other one, though, um…"

"Checkers?" she supplies, and he nods.

"Sometimes the younger guys will play that, draw the board out in snow and use pebbles, but you can't do that for chess. And no way could anyone bring a real set up the mountain; you'd lose all the pieces. Games are no fun when you're worrying about keeping it together the whole time."

Elsa looks at him like he's said something wise, but he can't imagine why.

* * *

They find Anna still in the gallery with Rapunzel and Eugene, the three of them playing Blind Man's Bluff. Anna is 'it,' Eugene's sash tied inexpertly over her eyes, and she staggers between Rapunzel and Eugene with all the grace of a drunken sailor as they call out taunts, dodging away whenever she gets too close. All three of them are laughing.

The constriction around Elsa's heart that has been squeezing ever since breakfast slowly releases. Seeing this also carries its own kind of hurt and regret, but there's healing here, too. This is all she's ever wanted for her sister. (It feels selfish to want it for herself, but… in time, she thinks. In time.)

"Come on, guys, at least tell me I'm getting close," Anna says.

Rapunzel takes one step towards Anna, then halts. "You're getting warmer."

"Chilly, for me," Eugene chimes in just as Anna moves her foot closer to Rapunzel, and she pauses, frowning.

"Seriously?" Anna complains.

"Yes, you're seriously getting colder," he says, before grinning at Rapunzel, who's hiding her laughter behind her hands. Through some kind of couple synchronicity Elsa could never hope to understand, they turn as one and acknowledge her and Kristoff, suddenly bearing twin mischievous smiles.

Anna walks a few paces towards the west hall, seemingly more out of boredom than any idea of where her targets are. "How about now?"

"Sorry, Anna, even Olaf's warmer than you," Rapunzel calls, stepping backwards.

Eugene follows her lead. "And that's no joke—he's literally closer, and he's not even in the room."

"Ha!  _Snow_ joke," Rapunzel giggles, and it suddenly occurs to Elsa that they're leading Anna to the door. To her. "Okay, now you're heating up."

"Eugene?"

"Warmer," he confirms. Anna's close now, only ten feet away.

Kristoff nudges Elsa; nods encouragingly when she looks up at him. Do they want her to…?

All it takes is a wave of her fingers, and suddenly there's an ice sculpture of herself reaching towards Anna's outstretched hand.

"Ice cold," she says as Anna makes contact and then shrinks away, yelping from the unexpected touch of chill.

" _Jeez,_ what did you—Elsa!" she cries happily as she whips off her blindfold.

"Hey. I'm heading down to the docks. I don't mean to interrupt, but you're welcome to join me if you're done?"

"Oh, we're done," Anna confirms, tossing Eugene's twisted-up sash at him. He makes a grab for it, but she'd thrown it so far off-course it still lands a yard away. "We're so done. Come on, guys!"

She grabs Elsa's hand on the way out, and Elsa lets herself be dragged along.

* * *

It's been a long day.

After Elsa raised the ship ("Are you ready?" she'd asked, lips quirking into an uneasy smile, and Anna doesn't think she'll ever, ever get tired of watching Elsa test her limits, or of watching Elsa, or of  _Elsa_ ) they'd surveyed the damage. Which was  _boring_ and took forever but hey, at least the harbormaster got to show off a little for once. The vessel's whole right side was completely caved in—they think it will take at least a month to fix, and that's once they can get their hands on the lumber. Anna's fine with that; she's in no hurry for Rapunzel and Eugene to leave. After that they'd toured the market, and then it was dinner, and just—yeah. It's been a long day.

"How's your nest?"

Then there's Kristoff.

"My  _nest,_ " Anna sniffs, snuggling down further into the bed of hay she'd made for herself when he told her there was only one stool in the barn (and like, it's the royal barn, how cheap are they that they only have one stool? They should work on that), "is fine."

"Whatever you say, princess," he says, rolling his eyes and turning back to his work.

And okay, like—she didn't sleep last night, maybe she's kind of tired, whatever—but for reasons she can't hope to understand, Anna has been kind of obsessing over Kristoff's hands all night. She knows that's weird, but just—hear her out, okay?

His hands aren't pretty, like Hans' were. His fingers aren't long or tapered; they aren't graceful. His fingers are thick, his knuckles knobby, his cuticles always dry and torn from the cold—even now that it's a proper summer.

Anna thinks they're wonderful.

They may not be pretty hands, but they are useful hands. Used hands. ( _Handy hands,_ she thinks, and giggles quietly to herself. Kristoff gives her a weird look, but she ignores him.)

Anyway, she's found herself watching them constantly today. Doing normal things, boring things, like cracking his knuckles or cutting his steak at the dinner table. Now, as he methodically brushes out Sven's fur, she finds herself watching the slow back-and-forth of his hand and wishing everything in his life could be like this: as easy and uncomplicated as reindeer.

Then she remembers his song, the duet she didn't mean to overhear— _people will beat you and curse you and cheat you—_ and she feels tears springing, unbidden, to her eyes. Who would hurt this person?

"Anna?" he questions, and she doesn't know when he started looking at her, she got distracted. She wipes hastily at her cheeks.

"Yeah?"

His face is all frowny. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, just—allergies. Lotta dust in here."

"Uh huh."

"Hey, I'm just sitting here, doing my thing. Mind your own business." She waves a hand at him, dismissive. "Brush your reindeer."

"You're so weird," Kristoff mutters, just loud enough for her to hear, and she sticks out her tongue.

* * *

Anna passes out like five minutes later.

Kristoff wouldn't even have noticed if she hadn't started snoring, the sound eerily reminiscent of a saw cutting through ice. Straws of hay are already weaving themselves into her braids.

Sven looks at him. " _You're not just going to leave her there, are you?"_  Sighing, Kristoff puts down his brush and wanders over to her. "Anna."

Nothing.

" _Anna._ "

She snores and turns over a bit, but gives no indication that she can hear him at all.

Huffing in annoyance, he bends down and scoops her up, bouncing her to get her head nestled properly in the crook of his shoulder. He's thrown by how light she feels in his arms—but then he remembers. Last time he held her like this she was dying, getting heavier and heavier as the ice in her heart spread and weighed her down.

And if he holds her a little tighter than he should as he carries her back to her room, it's not like she's awake to notice.


	4. Chapter 4

Kristoff had been joking that first day when he told Anna that Rapunzel was probably just like her, but as far as he can tell? He hadn't been far off the mark.

Rapunzel is sweet, and kind, and a spaz, just like he'd said. But she's also tiny and freckled and makes friends wherever she goes. She has a bit of a mouth on her, and she gets passionate about the strangest things, and leaps before she looks. It's kind of uncanny, really.

At first he'd wondered if maybe he was just uninformed, and all princesses were as uninhibited and fun, but it only took the thought of Olaf's receiving line to remember that wasn't at all the case. Some of those girls made  _Elsa_  seem breezy and easygoing by comparison.

So maybe it's just the kinds of princesses who grew up alone that appeal to him. The kind who would go on adventures, or marry commoners.

Not that Eugene is  _common,_ exactly.

Not that he's thinking about marrying Anna.

The point is that he likes Rapunzel, and he likes Eugene. The past week with them has been great, and he's starting to think he's going to really miss their company once they've gone.

But none of that means that he wants to bring the Prince Consort of Corona with him on his first ice harvesting trip in weeks.

"Kristoff, come on," Anna says for like the fifth time, and if Eugene's so keen to go up into the mountains, why isn't  _he_ arguing his case?

Oh right. Because Anna's a crazy person.

"Absolutely not. What I do is dangerous," he says, stepping around her as he packs up all the new gear Anna bought him. She didn't just replace what burnt, she got him top-of-the-line quality… everything. He's never owned anything this nice. He tries to focus on that, on the shine of the metal and the smell of new leather.

"But he's been cooped up in castles for so long—"

"That's what I'm afraid of. He's a royal, okay, ice harvesting isn't something people can just do."

"He was Flynn Rider!"

"You can't  _steal_ ice!"

He doesn't know how it came to this. An hour ago they were having a perfectly nice dinner, but when he'd answered Elsa's totally innocent  _So, what are you doing tomorrow, Kristoff?_ with the truth, it was like all hell broke loose. He wasn't trying to challenge anyone's masculinity, but apparently Eugene felt threatened or whatever, or Anna thought he should, and then when Kristoff tried to bail Anna followed him down to the stables. He doesn't even know. Somehow, this is his life now.

"That was a low blow," Anna says. "Eugene is a good guy."

"I never said he wasn't."

"Then why won't you let him go with you?"

Kristoff tugs at his hair. "We've been over this a half dozen times already.  _Why_  is this so important you?"

"Because I'm worried about you!" Anna shouts, and—wait, what?

He blinks at her, and though she's breathing hard, nostrils flaring in anger, she doesn't seem like she's about to take it back. "You're… worried about me," he repeats, the words feeling strange on his tongue.

"Yes!"

"Anna…" he starts slowly, testing his thoughts before he voices them, "Yeah, working the ice is dangerous, but I don't need a babysitter watching out for me. I promise I'll be safe."

Some of the anger seeps out of her, but it gets replaced by frustration as she rolls her eyes at him. "Not  _that_ kind of worried, dummy. I'm—what I mean is that I want to make sure that you're… that you have friends. Because you don't have, like. Any. And hey, I'm one to talk, I've never had friends either, but if we have the same friends that works out worse for you than it does for me, because you're just surrounded by girls all the time. You should have guy friends."

"Sven's a guy."

"Sven is a  _reindeer._ Sven can't stand up and be your best man at our wedding!"

Kristoff's eyes go wide as dinner plates, but that's nothing compared to the shock Anna seems to have given herself. "Wha…?"

"I. I mean.  _Your_ wedding. To anyone. Not me." If anything, hearing that come out of her own mouth seems to make her panic even more. "Not that it couldn't be me, but I'm so not ready to get married, like  _so_ not ready. Not that I think  _you're_ ready to get married, I just—I, um—"

It takes about three steps to close the gap between them, and when he bends down to kiss her because it's the only thing he can think of to shut her up, her returning hum is so grateful he thinks she's been waiting for someone to do that for years. He has to really slouch to keep their foreheads rested together when he pulls away, but the ache in his back is worth it.

"I'm not lonely," he tells her, because he's never had this before—someone worried about him like that. Not a human someone, anyway, and… okay, he's starting to see her point.

She runs a small hand up his chest, pulling away to look him in the eye. "Yes, you are," she says, the expression on her face impossibly understanding. "I just… I just want you to be around people who want good things for you."

He thinks about her face when she said  _Nice duet,_ and how she didn't even know him but she bought carrots for Sven anyway. He thinks about the way Eugene sometimes rubs at his ribs when he thinks Rapunzel isn't looking, and… well, he's got to start trusting people eventually.

"Fine," he grumbles, "he can come. But if he falls through the ice I'm blaming you."

"I'll take that deal," Anna sniffs, turning her nose up all  _I told you so,_ so he tickles her until she cuts out the princess act.

(Later, he walks her to her door just to say goodnight, and when she dreams, she dreams of Kristoff moving warm and heavy above her.)

* * *

 

The next morning dawns bright and hot, and Kristoff tries to ignore the trickle of sweat running down his back as he loads up the last of his gear. He may be overheating now, but once he gets into the mountains he'll be glad he dressed in extra layers.

"Do you have to go?" Anna asks, draping herself over the seat of his sled in the most obnoxious way possible. He'd get annoyed, but he thinks he used up all of his annoyed last night, and there's something in her eyes that tells him that despite the tone she's taking, the question is honest.

"It's July, Anna," he says gently. "People need ice."

"Not anymore. We have Elsa now."

He sits down next to her, whistling low. "Wow. Just like that, I'm out of a job."

"You're good at other stuff besides ice harvesting," Anna says, twisting around to face him better.

"Oh yeah? Like what."

"Like…" she pauses for a moment, and his chest does a skip-jump of combined affection and dread as he wonders what she'll come up with; if she can even come up with anything at all. "Ooh, like lute playing! You could be the town troubadour. You have a lovely singing voice."

He flushes. "I only sing for Sven. And besides, Elsa wouldn't have named me Chief Ice Guy—"

" _Ice Master and Deliverer,_ thank you very much."

"—if she was just going to make the whole kingdom's ice herself. Her ice is magic. How do we know it's safe to drink? What if it hurts someone?"

"Well, that would be easy enough to find out…"

"And who's going to be the test subject?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "You?"

Anna frowns. "Okay, okay, I see your point. But… do you really have to go?"

"I'll be back in a few days. You'll be fine, you have Elsa and Rapunzel to keep you company."

"And you'll have Eugene," she says, sounding more like she's reminding herself than him.

"Not if Eugene dies of heatstroke before we leave the courtyard," a voice grumps from behind them, and when they both turn around Anna has to slap both hands over her mouth to keep from laughing.

It seems that someone—probably Rapunzel, who's standing beside him and looking at him like he's her own personal dress-up doll—took the whole  _it's cold in the mountains_ thing very seriously. It would be a miracle if Eugene can even see out of the tiny eyehole left to him between his high scarf and low hood, and it looks like he can't rest his arms comfortably at his sides.

"Nice outfit," Kristoff deadpans, and Eugene points an accusatory finger at him.

" _Don't start._ "

"I'm not starting anything, I'm approving. I did tell you to dress warmly."

Anna moves to get down from the seat, but manages to completely miss the little footplate she's supposed to step on and tumbles forward. For a split second, her world is whirling uncertainty—and then she's caught by strong, steady hands.

"Gotcha," Rapunzel says, hair falling into her eyes, and Anna's heart pounds from the adrenaline of the near-fall.

"Thanks," Anna breathes.

"Okay, okay, let's get this show on the road," Eugene says, climbing up to take Anna's place. "Mush."

Kristoff makes a face. "You say that to dogs, not reindeer."

"Nuance," Eugene shrugs, and then with a flick of Sven's reins, they're off.

Anna's mouth falls open as they ride away, because she was supposed to say to be careful, she was supposed to tell him she'd be waiting for him, and she didn't even manage to get out a goodbye. She waves until the sled is just a speck on the horizon, and then not even that, because the last time Kristoff left her to go into the mountains she  _died,_ so it's just—it's a little—well. It's a lot, actually.

"So," Rapunzel says, pulling Anna back to reality. "Now what?"

* * *

 

_Now what_ turns out to be a lot of things. They drop down by the docks to see how the repairs to Rapunzel's ship are going, and then, inspired, decide to examine Elsa's makeshift extensions and additions to the castle. The ice is only temporary, until they can actually rebuild the parts that had crumbled into rubble under the brunt of Elsa's winter, so Anna figures now's the time.

It's kind of amazing how Elsa was able to replace every parapet and rafter in exact replica, from memory. Even more amazing that she can sustain it without thinking about it—even as she sleeps. Anna can't even walk and talk simultaneously sometimes, but here Elsa is maintaining Olaf's flurry and literally holding their home together while actually being  _queen._

"Cold, cold, cold…" Rapunzel whimpers as they explore what used to be the east wing study, tiptoeing gingerly. Anna grins, grateful for the distraction from her thoughts. She's  _never_ the rational one.

"See, this is why most people wear shoes," she jokes, nudging Rapunzel with her shoulder.

"I like knowing what's under my feet," she says, and the simple wisdom of it kind of throws Anna for a loop. "This is amazing, though."

Anna shrugs. "This is nothing. You should have seen her palace."

"It's not still there?"

"Um… I dunno, actually. I guess I just assumed Elsa thawed it when we brought back summer, but maybe she didn't. Ooh, I could take you! Except we'd need Kristoff to be our guide, I don't think I know the way without him."

"Why couldn't Elsa be our guide?" Rapunzel asks. "She obviously figured it out the first time."

* * *

 

"Please, Elsa? Please, please,  _please?_ " Anna begs.

Elsa sips her soup perhaps a tad more forcefully than necessary. "Anna, I have a kingdom to run. Much as I may like to, I can't just dash off into the mountains whenever I feel like it."

"So you would like to," is all Anna seems to hear, and Elsa rolls her eyes.

"Of course I would. But that's not the only thing to consider."

"Why not? I mean, look at the amazing things you can do. You could probably whip up a snow-Elsa to run the kingdom for a day and nobody would even notice."

"Awwwh, Olaf could have a girlfriend!" Rapunzel chimes in.

Elsa smiles despite herself. "Maybe before we do any of that, we should focus on getting this castle back to the way it used to be. I haven't even looked into hiring carpenters yet."

"Okay…" Anna says, folding this information into her world order, and Elsa can practically see the cogs turning behind her eyes. "Why don't we do the rebuilding ourselves?"

Elsa doesn't know where she expected Anna to take this conversation, but it wasn't there. "Wait, what?"

"I mean, not  _all_ of it, there's obviously stuff I don't know about engineering that we'd need a consultant for, but like—think about it! All of the workmen in the city are already working on  _The Waking Sky,_  so—"

"The waking sky?"

"It's what I'm calling Rapunzel's ship," Anna handwaves. "Seeing as we're basically making it again from scratch, I thought it should get a new name. Catchy, right?  _Any_ way, all the people who could be working on the castle are already working on the boat."

"That's—they're different skills, that's not even remotely true."

"That's not a no," Anna points out in sing-song.

"That's because I'm not saying no," Elsa says. "As long as you promise to get a professional to help you, I'm happy to put you in charge of the rebuilding efforts."

"Really?" Anna squeaks, and then there's a scrape of wood against stone as she pushes herself out of her chair and launches herself at Elsa for a hug. "Thank you!"

"It's your home. Our home. It only makes sense for you to oversee the repairs, especially since you—" Elsa stops, swallowing, arms still around her sister. "You probably know the castle better than anyone. Just promise me you won't try and do it alone."

"Of course not! And either way, I'll have Rapunzel to help me. Right?"

Rapunzel beams. "Oh, yes! And I've actually studied architecture before. When I was fifteen I went through this phase where I built a lot of miniature models for Pascal—I got pretty good at it. I don't have the books anymore, but I'm sure in your library there's all sorts of things."

"See?" Anna says. "We don't even need—"

"That was  _not_ the deal," Elsa says, shutting Anna's thought down before she can even complete it, but Anna shrugs it off with a smile.

* * *

 

"Do you think Elsa would let me paint in one of the rebuilt rooms? If we're already doing a total redesign, why not go all out?"

They were supposed to retire to their chambers after dinner, but Rapunzel'd slipped into Anna's bedroom in her nightgown a half hour later, head full of ideas. She paces by the window, apparently too energized to sit. Anna, amused, watches her from the bed. "Even if she says no, I think we should paint it anyway."

Rapunzel pauses. "What? No. I don't want to make her mad."

"Why would she be mad? They're just walls. If we hate it she can wallpaper over it like every other room in this freaking castle. I say we should have some fun."

"You've never even seen me paint; for all you know I'm terrible."

"You? Pffff, not even," Anna says, but when Rapunzel doesn't reply, eyes distant, she frowns. "Hey. Are you okay?"

Rapunzel blinks. "Yeah, fine."

"It's just that you were staring," Anna points out, and Rapunzel immediately averts her eyes, as if that could undo it. "What were you staring at?"

Rapunzel stares at the floor guiltily, rubbing her bare feet together. "Your hair?"

"My hair?" Anna repeats, lost. "Why?"

"Well, I—because—my hair used to be…" Rapunzel can't seem to finish that thought, so she lets it go and starts a new one. "Would it be okay if I brushed it, for a bit? I used to do that to calm down, but mine's so short now, and it's just not the same."

"Of course! Is that what you were so worried about? Yeesh, c'mere," Anna says, patting the spot next to her. Rapunzel obediently walks forward and takes her seat on the bed while Anna scoots around so her back is to the headboard, and bows her head. Rapunzel deftly unties the ribbons of her plaits and starts smoothing down the strands.

"Your hair is beautiful," Rapunzel says, voice low and musical. "Do you always braid it yourself?"

"Mostly," Anna shrugs.

"Only mostly?"

"If it's something complicated, Gerda will do it for me. Elsa taught me to braid when we were small, but now she doesn't… we don't…" Anna trails off, but it's not sadness Rapunzel detects in her tone. Just hesitation.

Having totally worked out the old twists of the braids, Rapunzel lifts Anna's hair off her neck with gentle hands, and begins to work through it with the brush. "You two seem really close."

"We do?" The hope in Anna's voice is unmistakable.

"Well, yeah. I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister."

"Hey, don't feel bad about it. For a long time I did, too."

The brush stills. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No, it's okay. I'm over it. I mean, not  _over_ it, over it, but—it's better now. So that's good. I'm okay, really."

Rapunzel resumes brushing, but her fingers seem more gentle now, even more tentative than they'd been. "People aren't meant to be locked up," she finally says.

Anna slumps a little. "No, we aren't."

For a while, the room is quiet but for the soft whispering sound of the brush.

When Rapunzel speaks again, her voice is strangely hoarse, like she'd forgotten how to talk in the interim. "Do you want me to leave it down, or should I braid it again for you?" she asks, then clears her throat.

"Um. Whichever you want," Anna breathes, swaying a little to the push and pull of Rapunzel's hands in her hair. It sounds like she's falling asleep.

"Then I'll leave it. Are you tired?"

"Me? Heck no," Anna mumbles, words slurring slightly. "I could wrestle a bear. And besides, this sleepover's only just getting started." She crab-walks backwards until she's sitting beside Rapunzel instead of in front of her, and leans back against the pillows. "So, what do you want to talk about?" she asks, with enough light in her eyes that Rapunzel wonders if she just dreamed their sleepy conversation.

"Um…" Rapunzel's never seen Anna with her hair completely down before; it makes her look different. Older, maybe. "I don't know, now all I can think about is wrestling bears."

"Oops."

Rapunzel reflects back on the last thirty seconds, feeling like she's missed something. "Wait. Sleepover?"

"Uh, yeah. I mean. If you want to?"

"I've never had a sleepover before. Unless you count Eugene."

"Do you braid his hair, too?"

"No, he wouldn't  _let_ me," Rapunzel complains, and Anna bursts out laughing.

That night, Anna dreams of running away from Elsa at the coronation, of getting bumped into from the side by an unknowing duke, but instead of Hans with his too-smooth  _Glad I caught you,_ it's Rapunzel holding her hand and keeping her upright. Messy brown hair falling into green eyes.

When she wakes there's a warm body wrapped around her, and a heartbeat against her back.

She snuggles in deeper and falls back asleep.

* * *

 

So it turns out that they actually have a Chief Architect on the royal payroll, which makes Anna's life, like, way easier. Sure he's somewhere around a billion years old and hasn't had to design anything in at least half that time, but he exists and that's what matters.

"Why is this drawn like this?" Rapunzel asks, examining the blueprints.

Okay, so it could be going better.

"Begging your pardon, your Highness, but—drawn like what?" the chief architect (his name is Rolf, but  _chief architect_ just sounds so much more fun and official) asks, distracted as he measures the width of a hole in the wall. Anna sits by the door and tries not to get in the way, but Rapunzel's frowning.

"With the load-bearing arches."

"Oh! To match the rest of the castle. Even when we redid the interiors for King Baldur a few decades back, we kept the structure the same. The Royal House of Arendelle has stood on these same stones for centuries."

"But that's not safe," Rapunzel says. She gesticulates around her, indicating the ice and open air. "I mean, obviously."

He turns to look at her, blinking owlishly behind his thick glasses. "Yes, but—it has to match."

"No it doesn't. Why would you build it worse than you know how to?"

"If I change this, I'll need to rip up the floors, take out the walls and change everything."

"So… change everything." Rapunzel says, like it's that simple.

From where Anna stands, she doesn't see why it can't be.

(Elsa doesn't bother them about getting outside help again after that.)

* * *

 

The hardest part is surveying all of the damage. The upstairs hallways and the outer fortifications ringing the courtyard are one thing, but revisiting the dungeon cell Hans had shackled Elsa in, the lounge off the south wing where he'd left Anna to die… they'll do those rooms last, Anna thinks, and nobody can blame them for that.

And in the meantime, Rapunzel makes it fun. She makes up little songs for them to sing as they work, and she lets Anna use the saw which is  _so cool_ —she's only nicked her finger once, and it was barely even a scratch, which has to be some sort of record—and honestly, Anna just kind of enjoys the manual labor. Maybe that's not very princess-y of her, but she likes the idea of making things with her own hands, of not sitting back and letting other people decide how her home is supposed to be. And Rapunzel totally gets that.

She also gets that sometimes, breaks are  _super_ necessary.

"Which one is your favorite?" Rapunzel asks, as they tour the art gallery for probably the fifth time since they met.

Anna looks at her in alarm. "Jeez, I dunno, it would be like picking children. I can't just—what kind of favorite?"

"…Um?"

"Like, the one I think is painted with the most skill? The one I think is prettiest? I need categories, here."

Rapunzel smiles. "Okay. Which one means the most to you?"

Anna doesn't hesitate; she grabs Rapunzel's hand and drags her towards the west end of the hall. "This one. Joan of Arc."

"Why?"

"Well I mean, look at her," Anna says gesturing broadly at the sword and shield. "When I was younger, it was just because she seemed so ready to face the world. She's got her armor, she's got her horse: she's set. None of the other women in any of these paintings looked like that, and I guess I just… wanted some of that fierceness for myself. And then I learned that she was real, and I studied up on her, and I kind of fell in love."

"How come?" Rapunzel moves to sit on the chaise longue beneath the portrait; Anna throws herself into it with practiced ease. "What was she like?"

"She was unstoppable. She was like this teenage warrior-nun—I mean, not that she was a  _nun,_ can you imagine?—who… she could do anything. She ended a war in a week. She could topple empires or sass snooty judges or, o-or save lost princesses," she stutters. "I wanted to be just like her. But, y'know, she died before age twenty, so maybe that was a bad plan. Didn't think that one out."

Rapunzel's eyes are wide. "How—why did she die?"

Anna swallows. "They burned her. Because she wore boys' clothes, and she… believed. In herself, and in a better world, and no matter what anybody said, she wouldn't back down. And. And they killed her for it. Which is, y'know,  _awful_ , but I still think that's better than the other option. She never, ever broke."

"You realize you're describing yourself, right?" Rapunzel says, voice is warm and affectionate.

"What? Naw. She's—I could never—"

Rapunzel rests her hand on top of Anna's, squeezing her fingers. "But you did."

_I would never shut you out,_ Hans had said, while he pulled that same move with her hands, and a bubble of panic rises suddenly in Anna's throat. It's not the same, Rapunzel obviously isn't trying to seduce her—forget that, Rapunzel's not a  _murderous liar_ —but no matter how hard her brain screams that, her body just won't listen. There's a rushing noise in her ears and she can't feel her fingers and somehow through all the din her mouth decides now's the time to ask, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I… what?" Rapunzel says, and Anna doesn't blame her, because there's no actual response to that, what is  _wrong_ with her—

"I'm sorry, I just—I have to. Go," she says, before all but sprinting out of the gallery, because she can't breathe, she can't breathe, she can't breathe.

* * *

 

The first time Rapunzel's mother—her actual mother, the queen—pointed out that she was mumbling and asked her to speak clearly, she'd had a complete meltdown. Even though she'd known it wasn't meant the same way, all she'd been able to hear was Gothel's voice, mocking her.

That's what she thinks about as she wanders the stacks in the library for a book about Joan of Arc; what she thinks about as she digs around the staff cellar for paints. She's been where Anna is now, where words can suddenly infect you like poison when you least expect them to. It's only in the last few months that she's been able to actually talk to people, free from the constant fear of someone dredging up a memory of her tower. For a while, she thought she'd never get here.

She only wishes she knew what she'd said that upset Anna so much.

They don't have any canvasses lying around, but then—she's never been one for convention. And anyway, she'd seen all sorts of scrap lumber in the icy east wing study, the remains of desks and tables lost in the snowstorm. She finds a piece of wood about the length of her arm and drags it back to her bedroom, carrying three books from the library with her.

Rapunzel flips through page after page of heroic feats and historic stand-offs, and tries to find Anna in the stories.

She paints.

* * *

 

Nobody's using the stool in the barn, but Anna finds she still prefers the safety and comfort of her hay nest.

It feels like it took hours for her heart rate to slow back to something approaching normal, but that can't be right, can it? Her head is a mess, thoughts racing from one panicked conclusion to the next as she tries to figure out what's going on with her.

_Why are you being so nice to me?_

Sure, Kristoff had been prickly at first, and yeah, she'd gotten used to Elsa being brisk at best over the years, but—but her first reaction to kindness shouldn't be to freak out. Hans can't possibly be the only person who was consistently nice to her. (Until, of course, he wasn't.)

She glances forlornly at what she's already come to think of as Sven's stall, wishing Kristoff were here. From the next stall over, her own horse huffs at her, as if he knows he's no longer her favorite steed.

"Don't look at me like that, Magnus," she orders, pointing her finger at him. " _You_ ran away from  _me,_ remember?" He snorts.

" _I'm not looking at you like anything,_ " she interprets, but it's just not the same.

* * *

 

Rapunzel's door is wide open when Anna's finally gotten herself together enough to go looking for her, and Anna tries not to read into it. She still knocks on the frame to announce her presence before she walks in.

"Come in! I—oh! Oh, hi. I—um. You know, I can be meaner, if you want," is the first thing Rapunzel says when she realizes who's in the room with her.

Anna opens her mouth to make some kind of witty retort, but the words die on her lips as she stares past Rapunzel to see what the other princess had been working on.

"… Is that me?"

"Yes? Or maybe Joan of Arc. I'm not sure," Rapunzel mumbles, before stepping aside to let Anna have a better look at the painting. "It sort of started out as one and then turned into the other. Is… do you like it? It's not done, or anything, I just—"

"It's amazing," Anna gasps, stepping closer. The style is—loose, free in a way Anna's never really seen before, and Anna's seen a  _lot_ of art in her day. Nobody uses color like Rapunzel does. But the slope of her own nose, the distribution of her freckles, are unmistakable. "This is insane. You're, like, crazy good."

Rapunzel smiles, wide and honest. "Thank you."

Anna tucks her hair behind her ear. "And I don't want you to be meaner. I don't even know why I reacted like that."

"I'm sorry I upset you."

"No, don't even be. I'm totally okay now."

"You say that a lot," Rapunzel points out, and like—well, yeah.

"Can I watch while you work?" Anna asks, and if Rapunzel notices that she's deflecting, she has the grace to not make too much of a face about it.

* * *

 

"You're distracting me."

Anna pouts. "Me? I'm not even doing anything."

"You're staring."

"I'm  _watching._ You said I could!"

"Well you're making me nervous!"

"What's there to be nervous about? If I wanted to make you nervous, I'd do this," Anna says, before hauling herself off the bed and standing at Rapunzel's shoulder. "See? Totally creepy."

"I'm ignoring you," Rapunzel says, focusing intently on adding just the right shade of cyan to Anna-Joan's eyes.

"Seriously? Come on," Anna whines, before sighing dramatically.

Rapunzel squeaks and jerks away at the unexpected air at her neck, painting a long, uneven blue slash across her otherwise-flawless work in progress.

For a long moment, no one speaks.

"Rapunzel, oh my gosh, I am so, so sorry _,_ " Anna babbles, backing away slowly, but Rapunzel only smiles, following step for step.

"No, don't be, I was just trying to capture your likeness!" Rapunzel says, and then there's a flash of blue and the sensation of wet and  _Rapunzel just painted on her face._

Anna's eyes narrow. "Oh, you are so paying for that."

"Prove it," Rapunzel dares, and the next five minutes blur into a haze of color and laughter.

Anna always figured that the lesson with Joan was  _When people tell you who they are, believe them._ And she thinks maybe that messed her up for a long time, because every time she tried it kind of got her into a lot of trouble. But… maybe she was right the first time.

It's just that they don't always tell you with words.

"Give up?" Rapunzel asks, chest heaving as she holds her palette up like a shield. They're in a standoff, the writing desk and stack of books Rapunzel'd been using as an easel between them. Anna's best move would be to take the painting and run, or maybe throw it, but like—blue streak aside it's  _really_ good, and could probably be saved if they'd bother to stop fighting and focus. (Like that's going to happen.)

Anna breaks right, hoping to make it to the door, but trips on the edge of Rapunzel's blanket, which she'd pulled from the bed in an earlier attempt to protect herself. Before she can scramble up Rapunzel's on top of her, their ankles awkwardly entwined. Anna tries to slither away, and they're both so slick with paint that she almost manages it, but Rapunzel grabs hold of her sleeve and refuses to let go.

"You're caught, Anna, surrender."

"Never!" Anna insists, twisting in place to try and wriggle free. They're both giggling, breathless and giddy, and then Rapunzel dips her head, and then—for one glorious, breathtaking moment—Rapunzel is kissing her.

Rapunzel is  _kissing her,_ and Anna's world turns upside down.

And then she's not, and the sudden vertigo is dizzying.

"Oh my gosh! I'm s—I'm so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. I just got carried away, because we're having so much fun, and when I'm having fun with Eugene we always kiss, and you're  _so_ fun, and—"

Anna kisses her again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so like... here's where this fic starts going out on a limb. I always feel weird asking for it, but I must admit that feedback honestly makes me a faster, better and more productive writer. If you have requests, or predictions, or comments, I would love to hear them! Speculation motivates me, and knowing people are out there listening is why I write in the first place. I can't promise I'll include all of what you might ask for, but you'll never get what you don't request.
> 
> Okay there endeth my plea ENJOY YOUR FRIDAY.


	5. Chapter 5

It's nearing midnight when a commotion at the gates heralds the return of Kristoff and Eugene. Two stories above them Rapunzel paces her bedroom, nervously twisting her wedding ring around her finger.

What on earth is she going to say to him?

The whole thing had only lasted a few minutes; after Anna kissed her back, they'd only had a few moments together before they'd heard footsteps. Kai had needed Anna's presence for something, and honestly, their flushed faces were the least noticeable thing about them, considering the mess they'd made.

"I'll see you at dinner?" Anna'd asked over her shoulder as she let herself be led away, and Rapunzel had nodded, stunned, and now…

The last few hours have not been very fun. She's bathed to get the paint off of herself, cleaned the whole bedroom from top to bottom—she'd had to borrow a mop from Gerda, who thankfully hadn't asked any questions—but no amount of scrubbing or organizing has brought order to her thoughts, or erased the phantom feeling of Anna against her skin.

The half-painted Joan of Arc watches her from the corner through distorted, cyan-blurred eyes.

There's no excuse for her behavior. She knows that. She made a vow, a promise, and it's the first thing she ever told Eugene about herself:  _when I make a promise, I_ _ **never**_ _break that promise._

She's a liar.

She's put so much time and effort into drowning out Mother Gothel's voice in her head, but now she can't stop the echoes. ( _"How did you find me?"_   _"Oh, it was easy, really. I just listened for the sound of complete and utter betrayal and followed that."_ ) Only now it's worse, because she knows she deserves the shame and the scorn. What kind of a person must she be to do that?

When Kai came to fetch her for dinner, she'd begged off, telling him she felt sick. That, at least, had been the truth. She's still half-sure she's going to vomit, but there's nowhere to go, and just—

The latch turns in the door and she freezes. Time's up.

"Hey, beautiful," Eugene says as he enters the room, stretching his arms above his head. "Man, remind me to thank whoever it is that gets our ice back home when we finally get outta here; harvesting is  _no joke._ My cramps have cramps. Anything fun happen while we were gone?"

For a moment she just stares at him, taking in the familiar planes and angles of his face—she  _loves_ his face—and the pit of doubt and self-loathing that has been sitting in her gut all night seems to explode, flowing through her veins until she's drowning in it.

" _Eugene_ ," she sobs, unable to stop the tears from bursting out, and he's upon her in a second, wrapping her into a hug.

"Hey, hey—what's going on? Rapunzel, what's happening?"

She pulls away from him, undeserving of his comfort. "I did something terrible."

"I've done lots of terrible things, you don't see me crying about them," he says, smirk tempered by his genuine warmth and clear concern. "Did you break something in the castle? Because I'm sure Elsa will understand, I mean, look at Anna, she probably breaks stuff all the time. And you can always say Pascal did it."

She only cries harder.

"Rapunzel, what happened?" he asks again, voice serious now. But even that's a kindness, because he should've said  _What did you do?_

"Earlier today, Anna and I were together, and we were just—I was painting, and then we got into a paint war, we weren't—but then…" She swallows. "I kissed her. Only a little. But then she kissed me, and—we kissed."

"I… see. Did—"

"I liked it," she confirms miserably, before he can get the question out. "And I'm so sorry, Eugene, I'm—I am  _so sorry._ "

Eugene sighs. This isn't, strictly speaking, the first time this has happened. In Rapunzel's early days with her parents, there had been lots of discussions of boundaries and physical affection—not all of them concerning her behavior with him. (Not even him. They were worried about how she acted with  _Flynn Rider_ , and that guy didn't exist _._ ) She's always had a lot of love to give, and it was a long process, getting her up to speed with what society would tolerate for friends as opposed to lovers, and for public as opposed to private.

This is, however, the first time she's shown any interest in a woman. It is also the first time she's done anything like this since they've been married.

Which means he has to ask.

"Are you not happy with me anymore?"

"What?" Rapunzel sputters, small hand coming up to up his cheek, guiding his gaze to hers. "Eugene, no, I—you're my dream."

He somehow twists his face into a smile, and it's cruel, in a way, that he has to be the mature one when she's the one who turned him into this person. Well. Back into this person. "I know I was. But maybe she's your new—"

" _No,_ " Rapunzel insists, green eyes flashing, and the weight in his chest lifts. That's his girl. "It's not my life without you in it. I love you."

"Okay," he says, "Okay. Good. Just making sure."

Her lower lip is trembling again as fresh tears fill her eyes. "And—and you still love me, right?"

"You're stuck with me, Blondie," he assures her with a wink, and he sees her finally breathe easily again.

"And you're not mad about…?"

Eugene palms the back of his neck, feeling lost. He didn't think this was a conversation they'd ever need to have. Back in the day, he'd walked her through all sorts of messy truths, but at least then he always had time to prepare, first.

"Believe it or not, a lot of guys would be pretty excited if their wives wanted to kiss other girls. I mean, so long as they did it in front of them."

Rapunzel's nose wrinkles. "Why?"

He scratches at his neck harder, wishing it could jump-start his brain. "I dunno, it's just… a man thing."

"Well, are you?"

"A man thing?"

"One of those guys."

"I…" he wanders away from her to sit at the foot of their bed. "I guess I never thought about it."

She sits down next to him, resting a hand on his knee. "Was Flynn Rider one of those guys?"

"Yeah."

They're both quiet for a moment, digesting the conversation. Rapunzel leans into him a little, resting her head on his shoulder. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too."

"And—and you know that… I mean. We could leave here tomorrow and go home, and I'd be—I wouldn't miss it."

He lets that sit in the air, turning further into her and inhaling the wildflower scent that still clings to her hair, after all this time.

"Anna's a nice girl," he finally says. "Weird, though."

"I'm weird," Rapunzel says, adorably defensive as she pulls away from him, and he laughs.

"I know."

It feels alright to leave it there, for now.

* * *

"And then," Kristoff says, hanging Sven's harness on its new hook, "he beat back the wolves with a  _frying pan._ Frying pans—who knew, right?"

"That's amazing," Anna says, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. A terrible chill had seized her the second Kai led her away from Rapunzel's room, and she hasn't been able to shake it all evening. She half-expects to see her breath every time she exhales as she helps Kristoff put away his equipment.

_Love is putting someone else's needs before your own._

Maybe there's still ice in her heart. That would explain everything: why it can't seem to pump her blood hard enough to reach her fingertips, why it had felt so easy and so right to kiss Rapunzel, to be kissed by her. Because if there isn't, if there's no reason, then she's just—she's just  _awful._

"Anyway, I think we got enough that I won't have to take another trip for a few weeks, even. Elsa offered to keep my ice cold with her own, so we were able to bring back way more than I normally  _ANNA, WILL YOU BE CAREFUL WITH THAT?_ "

Startled, Anna stops trying to shove his tools back into the storage shed, and Kristoff swoops in and rights the pickaxe that had been precariously close to falling on top of her.

He's breathing hard. "One more second and that thing could've sliced your head clean off; what were you thinking?" Only now that he's actually looking at her his expression changes from anger to concern. "…Are you okay? You're trembling."

Anna looks down at her hands to find that that they are, in fact, shaking terribly. "It's nothing, I'm just really cold."

"Wait, what?"

He stares at her like she's just said she's dying or something, but then she realizes that, for him, she pretty much just  _did._  "Oh no, Kristoff, I didn't mean—"

"Don't scare me like that," he begs, and his arms are strong and secure around her as her feet leave the ground, swept into the tightest bear hug she's ever experienced. For the first time in hours, Anna feels warm, and she sinks into it—into him—gratefully. He starts chuckling, a rumble from deep in his chest that thrums all the way through her. "What is this?"

"What's what?"

He pulls back, swiping a finger past the shell of her ear as he does so. It comes up maroon. "Is this  _paint_? Why do you have paint behind your ears?"

The temperature drops again. "It's… a long story?"

He shakes his head. "Of course it is. Here, lemme just—" He licks his thumb and then starts scrubbing behind her ear, just at her hairline, then stops just as suddenly. "Sorry. This is weird. Is this weird? This is weird."

"No, it's—nice. I mean, fine. A little spit never hurt anybody, right?"

His lopsided smile pulls a little to the right, and she can't tell him, she can't.

* * *

Everyone's quiet at breakfast the next morning, and Anna can tell it's putting Elsa on edge. Heck, it's putting  _Anna_ on edge. There'd been too much silence at this table for way too long, and it only took a few days for them to get used to noisy conversation and laughter. The reversion back to hush is deafening.

But what is there to say?

"So, back to repairs this morning?" Elsa asks conspicuously, and Rapunzel speaks up before Anna can even dream of formulating a response.

"Actually, I think Eugene and I are going to go into town today and do some shopping. There are some things I would have packed if I'd known this was going to be an extended trip, and I think we both could do with a few extra outfits."

Eugene blinks at her like that's news to him, but rolls with it easily enough. "After a week of freezing my keister off, I could use a day of summer sun," he agrees.

Kristoff looks at Elsa, curious. "Repairs?"

"We're rebuilding the castle!" Anna chimes in, glad for the distraction.

His brow knits as he looks back and forth between Anna and Elsa. "We who?  _You?_ "

"Yes, us! Well, not us-us. Me and Rapunzel. Elsa's already keeping the ice in place; if she had to do both at the same time her brain might explode."

"Rapunzel's quite the engineer," Elsa adds, pointedly ignoring Anna's comment in favor of smiling over the rim of her teacup at Rapunzel.

"And you still have all your fingers and toes?" Kristoff asks, scrutinizing Anna from across the table.

She gasps. "Excuse me, sir, I am now a wood-sawing  _expert._ "

"You almost beheaded yourself with my axe last night!"

"She did what?" Elsa and Rapunzel ask in horrified union.

Anna pouts. "I'm sitting right here. And, y'know, still headed. Anyway, Rapunzel—I can probably finish installing the reinforcements we were putting in the structure of the south turret myself, right? I don't need you?"

"I…" Rapunzel blinks at her, looking unsettled. "I guess not. Or, I guess so. I mean: yes, you can finish it yourself."

"Great!"

"This I gotta see," Kristoff jokes, and Anna glares at him.

"Well, maybe if you behave yourself, I'll let you help."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Elsa's shoulders relax as they all start bickering, and: mission accomplished.

It's only when breakfast is over and Rapunzel and Eugene are getting up to leave that she realizes what she'd said. Unbidden, her own voice echoes in her ears— _I don't need you?_ —and jeez, she can be so  _slow_  sometimes, it's a wonder she ever gets anything done. Excusing herself, she dashes away from the table, catching up with Eugene and Rapunzel just outside the hallway.

"Hey, before you leave can we—talk privately? Real quick?" she asks, and Rapunzel nods.

"I'll meet you at the gate, okay?" Eugene says, trailing his palm across the small of Rapunzel's back before heading towards the stairwell. Anna watches him go as she tries to figure out what to say.

Because yesterday she'd said  _see you at dinner?_ and Rapunzel had nodded but then she wasn't there, she didn't come, and maybe that affected Anna more than she'd like to admit. Maybe even more than the other stuff.

"I-I'm sorry I kissed you," Rapunzel volunteers when Anna's hesitance becomes too much for her.

"You are?" Anna asks, in a voice much smaller than she'd intended. (She'd also intended to say  _Yeah, me too,_ but her mouth and her brain don't seem to be on friendly terms at the moment.)

"I mean, aren't you?" Rapunzel asks. "It was a mistake. What we did was wrong."

"Oh no, totally. Agreed. Not gonna happen again. It's just…" Anna swallows, because this is important. "I really like being your friend."

"I really like being yours!" Rapunzel agrees, too quickly.

"And I kind of have this history of messing things up when I want to keep them, so I… I…"

Rapunzel puts her hand on Anna's arm, just at the crook of her elbow, and they both ignore the goose flesh that immediately pops up on her skin. "I'm not going anywhere. We just need some time to remember… what's what. So I figure, you can spend the day with Kristoff, and I'll be with Eugene, and then everything can get back to normal. Like it was."

"Sounds good," Anna says, plastering a smile on her face, but to be honest it doesn't sound good. Not at all.

* * *

Apparently  _some things I would have packed_ had meant a guitar and knitting supplies, which tells Eugene what he needs to know about where Rapunzel's head is. She's a Renaissance woman if he's ever met one, multi-talented to the core—one of the few parts of her upbringing she's still proud of—but normally, these days, she'll pick one hobby and stick with it for a while. It's not like it was in her tower. She used to have to fill her days with this stuff, and the fact that she's collecting supplies… well, it makes him nervous.

"So," he says as casually as he can as she examines a pottery wheel, which—how often is she going to use a  _pottery wheel_  before they go back to Corona _,_ seriously—"What did Anna want to talk about?"

Rapunzel looks at him sideways. "You can guess."

"I can, but I'd rather you tell me about it."

Even Rapunzel can tell the merchant is now eavesdropping on them, so she grabs his hand and pulls him into the bustle of the thoroughfare. The Arendelle market is a crowded, busy place, and they'll be harder to overhear if they keep moving.

The way their fingers automatically twine together is more comforting than he would have thought. He skims his thumb across the back of her hand, and she leans into his arm as they walk.

"I apologized for kissing her, and we agreed that we wouldn't let it ruin our friendship," Rapunzel finally says, looking at the ground.

"Is that what you want?"

She glances up at him, confused. "Of course it is. I—Anna's not  _like_ all the other princesses we've met. You know?" (He does.) "I know I screwed up but that doesn't mean I don't—that we shouldn't be able to…"

"Hey, no, I know. I get that," he says, because her eyes are starting to do that shiny almost-cry thing. "What I meant was, are you sure you only want to be just her friend?"

Rapunzel halts where she stands and wrenches her hand out of his grasp, the almost-cry thing evolving into an actual-tears thing. "Why are you asking me this?"

Shit.  _Shit._  He's still new to this, really, this whole Being a Supportive Partner thing, and he's screwed it up before. But this is new territory for both of them, and he'd thought he was doing the right thing. Asking a lot of questions has generally worked for him in the past—Rapunzel thrives on them.

"Rapunzel, I—"

"I  _hurt_ you," she cries, eyes brimming over, and  _oh._ They're close to the fjord, and he sends his thanks up to whoever's listening as he throws an arm over her shoulders and escorts her down to the water, away from unwanted attention. There aren't any docks on this end of the market, just a slope leading to the gently-lapping tide, and he turns to her, looking her full in the eyes.

"You didn't," he says, surprising himself. But even as he says it, he knows it's the truth. "I'm not hurt, I'm fine."

She sniffles. "You're not jealous?"

"I didn't say that," he teases, but really, even that's not the primary emotion going on here. (What  _is_ the primary emotion going on here is something he has yet to figure out, but he's not mad, he knows that much, and he's gonna take that and run with it.)

Rapunzel sits herself down on the grass, looking torn. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what I want. But I know I always,  _always_ want you."

"You have me," he promises, taking a seat beside her. "Blondie, I'm yours. We're okay."

"So why do you keep pushing this?" Her fingers skim her collar bone, searching for the comfort her curtain of hair used to provide. (He knows better, now, than to grab for her hand the way he used to, to draw attention to or wean her off of these tics. They're part of what make her herself, and she deals with them on her own time. He's in awe of her every day.)

He sighs. "Because she makes you happy. That's mostly why I agreed to go ice harvesting—I could tell you wanted to spend time with her. And you being happy makes  _me_ happy, so really I'm just being selfish, when you think about it."

She pulls a face. "Eugene."

"Look, I don't know!" he cries, hands thrown wide, trying to keep his voice down because he's not angry, just… lost. "I don't know either, okay, we're just… making this up as we go. All I know is that I died for you, and I'd do it again, so if you want a girlfriend on the side who'm I to judge? Anna's a catch; you have good taste. I mean, Kristoff's a big guy, but I could take him for you. Probably."

That earns him a groan. "See? She has a boyfriend, we shouldn't even be thinking about this!" Rapunzel reaches across his lap to take his left hand, biting her lip as she examines the wedding band on his finger. "I don't want there to be  _sides_. You're my partner, what's what we promised. Forever, right?"

"As long as you'll have me," he agrees, and she squints her eyes at him.

" _Forever,_ " she reiterates. "So if anything happens, it happens to both of us."

His mouth goes dry when he realizes what she's implying. He left behind a solid decade of debauchery to be with her—didn't even think twice about it—but this would be… well. It would be something, alright.

He swallows. "I could live with that."

* * *

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Kristoff asks as he holds Anna's ladder steady. He keeps his eyes trained straight ahead, because if he looks up he'll—well, she's wearing a dress, you know? It makes him nervous, not being able to spot her properly, but not-looking seems like the right thing to do.

"Positive!" she says between the nails in her teeth, and  _that_ was a terrible idea he couldn't talk her out of, so he holds his tongue. She's not choking up on the hammer nearly enough for his tastes, but he's starting to learn Anna does this thing where if you call her out on five things she'll only listen to one, so he's trying to pick his Thing carefully.

"You're leaning out too far, you're making the ladder unstable."

"Never had that complaint before," she says, before taking the last nail from her mouth and putting it in position. "Maybe Rapunzel's just better at supporting me than you are." But then—there's a change in her, one he senses more than he sees. A sudden stiffness in her back, and he's already shouting for her to be careful as the hammer comes down, because he knows exactly what's going to happen—" _Ow!_ Oh  _ow,_ ow, ow, ow…" she cries, dropping the hammer and pitching backwards, as if distancing herself from the nail she missed completely will make the pain lessen.

She loses her balance, but he's there to catch her. ( _Like a crazy trust exercise._ )

"Are you okay?" he asks as he rights her, and she shakes her head, tears in the corners of her eyes.

"Not— _ow—_ not, um, really." She cradles her red thumb in her uninjured hand, shaking them together as if she could fling the throbbing out by force. She doesn't seem too upset; just in pain, and mad at herself in an unsurprised sort of way.

There's a patter of feet in the hall, and then Elsa bursts in. "What's going on, I heard screaming—?"

"Nothing to worry about! I'm just, y'know, me," Anna manages to grit out, presenting her injury to her sister. "Oops?"

"Oh, Anna," Elsa says, voice full of warmth but not quite a laugh. "Hold on, let me get it." She rolls her hands in the air, creating a small block of ice. "Here. Hold it where it hurts."

Anna takes the ice eagerly, but sucks air in through her teeth unhappily when the cold meets her swollen hand. "Aah, freezing much?"

Elsa rolls her eyes. "That's kind of the point."

"Wait, try this," Kristoff says, untying the sash around his waist and handing it to her. She sighs with relief as the cloth buffer allows her to actually enjoy the cold.

"What would I do without you guys?" she asks, smiling at them.

Kristoff and Elsa look at each other, totally unsure how to answer her.

* * *

It's been an exhausting day.

She'd managed to keep it together while they were working on the castle, but being around Kristoff right now is hard. Every word feels like a lie. When he tried to kiss her when they stopped work for the day, she'd ducked away, and while she tried to play it off like she just hadn't been paying attention, she's pretty sure he noticed.

(It's not that she doesn't want to kiss him, she does, but—she doesn't deserve to kiss anybody, not right now.)

She'd gone up to the lighthouse because she didn't think anyone would look for her here. The only person in the world who knows she comes up here to think is Hans, and he's rotting in a jail somewhere, or at least she hopes he is, so she figures she's safe. She lets her legs dangle over the edge, arms entangled in the guardrail, as she watches the signal light cut a path across the twilight, its pattern easy and predictable.

So when Anna hears footsteps on the stairs, she almost wrenches her shoulder out of its socket trying to get into a battle-ready pose. She deflates when she sees who's coming.

"Eugene. What are you doing here?"

He shrugs. "I have this thing about climbing towers. More often than not, I find a pretty girl at the top, so I figured—why not try my luck?"

She hopes the failing light can hide her blush. "Were you looking for me?"

"I wasn't, actually. I just realized I hadn't seen the view from up here, and I thought I'd try and catch it before the sun goes down." He must tell by the look on her face that she's not even interested in calling his bluff, it's such a bad lie. His shoulders slump. "We missed you at dinner."

"I told Gerda where I'd be."

"You told Gerda you'd be  _out,_ that's not the same thing." He vaults himself over the top of the guardrail, taking a perch and bracing his ankles at the cross-beams. She could rest her head on his shin, if she wanted, which… is probably a weird thing to be thinking about. "Rapunzel talked to me about, ah. Yesterday."

Anna's chest  _aches,_ like there really is a shard of ice buried in her heart. (She still hasn't ruled it out.) "Oh."

"Have you talked to Kristoff about it?"

She shakes her head. He's going to hate her. Kristoff, Eugene—all the he's. Even Kai would hate her if he knew.

Eugene must have looked down to check her reaction, because he asks "Are you planning to?" as though he knows she's said no.

She sniffles. "I want to," that's a lie, she doesn't want to at all, "but how can I?"

"Well, hey. Rapunzel told me, and we're alright."

"That's different. You're married."

"We are. But last I checked, you don't need to be married to care about someone. Or to forgive them." He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "This isn't going right. What I'm trying to say is, are  _you_ okay?"

Anna blinks. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. What's on your mind?"

_Why are you being so nice to me?_ She'd sworn to herself she wouldn't ask that again, but she doesn't understand. "How are you so okay with this?"

Eugene sighs, a long, sustained puff of air. Like he's letting something go. "How about I tell you a story."

"Is it the story of how you died?"

"Not this time. It's… how much do you know about Flynn Rider?"

"Not much. I know that he—or I guess,  _you,_ huh—got really famous for stealing that, um, chalice thing."

"The Fortune of Brandywine, thank you," he corrects.

"And then there was the Polaris gem, and you hijacked the King's carriage…"

"I  _stole_ it, it's only a hijacking if someone's in it."

"And then you tried to steal Rapunzel's crown. And the rest is history, I guess."

He laughs. "You know your stuff! But the thing is, as easy and glamorous as it all sounds when you just do the highlights, I did a lot of… well, a lot of things I'm not proud of."

Anna looks up at him, because this is important. "What kind of things?"

"Like… Hans things."

The way her blood goes frigid in her veins is—she's—"What?" She'd move except she can't, she  _can't_. She's frozen.

"Not, y'know, the murdering or the scheming or anything! Well, sort of the scheming. But I would lie to girls, let them think what they wanted to so I could get what I needed. Mislead them. Use them. A few of them were even accomplices." He coughs. "Granted, not all of the accomplices were informed beforehand that they'd be accomplices."

She thinks she might be crying but she kind of can't feel her face. "Why are you telling me this?"

Eugene scrambles down from his perch, eyes wide with alarm, but she flinches away from him when he reaches out to touch her. "Oh, jeez, Anna, I didn't mean—" Looking defeated, he digs around in his pocket until he fishes out a handkerchief. "Here."

She takes it from him and wipes at her cheeks, trying to get her breathing in check. It's a pretty manly handkerchief, as handkerchiefs go—dark blue with a white trim, no sign of lace or ruffles. His initials are monogrammed in the corner:  _EF._

Not Flynn.

_Not_ Hans.

"I'm telling you this because it's important that you understand that… I wasn't always a good man. Not by a long shot. And that's why I'm okay with it, you know? Rapunzel's got twenty years of those kinds of mistakes shored up, and even if she went back and made every one of mine, it still wouldn't make her a bad person. People change. If you let them."

"So it's fine if she hurts you, because you've hurt other people?" That's probably not the point he's trying to make, but it sure sounds like it is.

He swallows, and her eyes involuntarily follow the bob of his Adam's apple. "I'm saying that intentions matter. Rapunzel wasn't trying to hurt me; you weren't trying to hurt Kristoff. Maybe it'll still hurt anyway, but things sting a lot less when you call them what they are."

The sky's completely dark now, the sun having set around them. She can't think of anything to say, too busy caught up in intentions, and how if that were true… wouldn't Elsa have left her room years ago?

Eugene doesn't seem to mind her silence. He gets back up and leans on the railing, casting shadow puppets against the sails in the fjord with every pass of the signal light. A rabbit, a dog, a bird.

"Kristoff's not the only one I didn't mean to hurt," Anna finally says. "Is Rapunzel…?"

"She's okay if you're okay."

That's way more responsibility than Anna wants. "And you?"

He laughs. "I'm okay if she's okay."

She pushes her tongue around in her mouth, sorting through her thoughts. Trying to find the right words. "I don't think you're a bad person," she decides, because  _Thank you for telling me you used to be_ is a bit on the nose.

"Yeah, well. Dying really changes your perspective on a few things, don't you think? Especially when you choose it."

He's the only person in the world who might understand that. "It wasn't a choice."

"I know," he says, and the spotlight passes by his face, casting ghoulish shadows across his features, just for a moment. But even in the worst light, she can't see Flynn in him—not even when she's trying to—and his smile is soft when her eyes adjust. "You gonna come back in?"

"In a bit."

"Your call. I'll see you around, Red," he says, giving her a lazy salute as he descends the stairs, and it takes a second for his words to sink in.

Red. He'd called her Red, like he calls Rapunzel Goldie, and Blondie, and—

Anna doesn't feel cold anymore.

* * *

Anna doesn't know what to do.

The right thing to do, if she's being honest, would be to tell Kristoff, or stop seeing Kristoff, or probably both until she figures out what's going on with her. Because there's clearly a  _lot_ going on with her.

What she needs, she thinks, is a love expert. Unfortunately, the only love experts she knows are the trolls, and like—she can't ask Kristoff's  _family_ whether or not she should break up with him. It would be like asking Elsa if she were interested in being a… a locksmith. (Not that Elsa wouldn't be a good locksmith, Elsa could probably be good at anything, but—not the point.) And besides, they'd probably just try and set up another wedding like they did last time. They aren't always great listeners.

Olaf is a fabulous listener, but probably isn't a much better option. She already knows what he's going to say: that she should do whatever makes her happy. As if it's that easy. What if what makes her happy is something horrible?

So she really has no choice but to knock.

"Elsa?" she asks with a light rap on the door, because it's late, and Elsa's got things to do, actual important Queenly things, and—

"It's open," Elsa says quickly, and Anna can't fight the smile that worms its way onto her face at that.

When she walks in, she finds Elsa in bed, reading a book—the title obscured by her fingers. With a pang, Anna realizes it's the first time they've been alone together in almost a week. She's been so wrapped up in her own drama she'd barely even noticed, and like, jeez, what does that say about her? That she could wait over a decade for a shot to be close to her sister again, and then drop it at the first sign of a shinier, newer toy or two?

"…Anna?" Elsa prods, and she jumps, realizing she'd just been standing at the threshold to Elsa's room like an idiot.

"Hi. Um. Can we… talk?"

"Of course. C'mere," Elsa says, patting the spot next to her on the bed, and Anna clambers up without a second thought. "What's on your mind?"

Where can she even start?

"Do you think it's possible there's still ice in my heart?"

Judging by the look on Elsa's face, that was absolutely, definitely the wrong place to start. "Are you—"

"I'm fine! I'm totally—sorry, that was… I'm fine. I'm talking metaphorically."

"Don't scare me like that," Elsa breathes, hand over her heart, and Anna winces. Twice in twenty-four hours. That's gotta be a record.

"I'm sorry," she says again, and means it.

Elsa leans over so their shoulders touch. "So what's wrong with your metaphorical heart?"

She thinks of Kristoff's face, the way everything about him softens when he's near her, his handy hands. She thinks of the way Rapunzel's lips had felt against her own. "I don't think I know what love is," Anna admits, and she thought she was done saying that, but apparently she's still as clueless as she was when Hans locked her in that office.

Elsa frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I thought I loved Kristoff— _love_ Kristoff—but maybe that was just being selfish? Because I needed an act of true love to save me, and, y'know, all about the not-dying, and he was  _there_ and I… maybe I was wrong. I got so caught up in thinking he's not like Hans that I think maybe I skipped the step where I asked myself if that means he's right for me."

"Where is all of this coming from?" Elsa asks, visibly reeling. (Yeah, welcome to Anna's  _life._ )

"I kissed Rapunzel yesterday. And I wasn't supposed to like it, it was an accident, but now I can't stop thinking about it, and I just feel so guilty, y'know?"

"Wait, what? Why would you—? What on earth possessed you to—?" Elsa can't seem to wrap her mind around any of these questions, so she settles for asking an easier one: "How do you kiss someone by accident?"

"No, I kissed her on purpose. I liked it by accident."

"Anna, she's married."

"That's the part you focus on? I'm with Kristoff, and she's also a  _girl._ "

"Does that bother you?"

"Shouldn't it bother  _you?_ "

"Anna…" Elsa says, something raw in her voice, and then she's laughing, deep and throaty.

"It's not funny," she pouts, and Elsa tries to rein in her giggle fit.

"I'm not laughing because of that, I'm laughing because I'm relieved! It's—I've been trying to get up the nerve to tell you that  _I_  like girls like that for weeks now."

Anna's face falls. "Oh, no."

Elsa draws back, alarmed. "No? Are you—is that… okay?"

"Nothing is okay!" Anna proclaims, dramatically pitching forward to fall face-first onto the bed. Elsa can just make out her words as she mutters into the sheets: "If we both feel like that, maybe I was right, and I don't love Kristoff." She turns her head to look up at her sister, eyes welling up with tears. "How am I supposed to tell him? I don't want him to go."

"Why not?"

"Because—because we only just found each other. And he's perfect. Because he takes me seriously and he always lets Sven have the first bite of carrot and he  _stayed_  and because I…"

"…Love him?" Elsa finishes for her. "I think you've just answered your own question."

"But what about—"

"Oh, Anna," Elsa murmurs, pulling her up from the covers and into a hug. "Has it occurred to you that maybe you're allowed to love both of them? It's been less than a month. Give your heart some time."

For a moment Anna is still in Elsa's arms as that sinks in, but then, just as suddenly, she's a tangle of flailing limbs as she wrestles herself away. "Well that's not fair!" she protests. "What about you?"

"What  _about_ me?" Elsa asks, warm and amused and looking more content than Anna's ever seen her. It's disconcerting.

"Well, if I like both, and then I get Rapunzel even though I already have Kristoff, that's—greedy. You don't have anybody."

Elsa smiles softly. "Anna, for now I'm happy just having  _you_."

Anna smiles back, because that's sweet, but then—"Wait, like having me, or like  _having_ me having me? Because even if we both like girls I don't think that's—"

"Oh my god," Elsa groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Seriously?"

"Okay, just checking." She flops down again, on her back this time, and stares up at the ceiling. (Elsa hasn't had a canopy bed like Anna's in years. Too confining.) "What about Eugene?"

"You tell me."

"I don't know. We talked earlier, and he made it sound like… it was okay? But he couldn't have meant that, because it's not."

"What do  _you_ want?"

Anna closes her eyes, and thinks about it. Tries to imagine a happy ending coming from all of this. "I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want everyone to be okay."

"Then go for it. Go get 'em."

"You can't be serious," Anna says, brow scrunching.

"If you'd given me any other answer, maybe, but—this isn't about ruining marriages or being greedy or… or any of that. You're thinking things through, and that's a good thing. I can't promise you it will all turn out like you want and nobody will get hurt, but: the course of true love never did run smooth."

Anna groans. "What do  _I_  know about true love?"

"A lot more than me," Elsa says, and the fact that they're here, repeating the words that hurt so  _much_  only a few weeks ago and turning them into something else… it's the best comfort Anna's had all night. At least, until Elsa hums and says, "Maybe you do still have ice in your heart."

Anna peeks one eye open, looking scandalized. "Excuse me?"

"Don't give me that look; you had to study science just like I did. Ice expands as it freezes; it gets lighter. Maybe your heart's the same."

Anna snorts and turns over, smothering herself in the pillows. "That was awful."

"You say that now, but you'll be using it against me within the week. And… if you need some time away from everyone while you sort out how you feel, I can arrange that. I'm sure there are all sorts of royal duties I can accuse you of neglecting."

"Maybe," Anna laughs, before snuggling deeper into the bed. "Um… can I stay in here, tonight? It's just… it's been a long day."

Elsa looks like she might cry, but—good crying. "Of course you can."


	6. Chapter 6

Rapunzel's hands are  _everywhere._

She's kissing her, too—first slow then fast, first shallow then deep—but what Anna can't get past is the touch, the feeling of fingers roving across her body, over her skin and under her bodice, her skirts. Rapunzel's bare feet run up Anna's calves as their legs entangle, and then they roll together, until Rapunzel's on top of Anna, laughing.

And then one of her hands dips somewhere else, somewhere lower and deeper, somewhere—

Anna jerks awake with a start, kicking off her blankets and sucking in huge mouthfuls of cool night air. Her heart is racing, skin flushed.

It's the third dream of its kind she's had in as many days, and it's starting to get a bit annoying.

Or, okay, annoying is the wrong word. The dreams are actually, um… pretty great. And yeah, maybe  _pretty great_ is kind of an understatement for the phantom pressure on her stomach and between her thighs, the dizzy sensations thrumming through her core. They may be embarrassing, but she would be lying if she said she hasn't been enjoying them.

But then again, they're not the problem.

"Anna? Anna, are you awake?"

_That_ is the problem.

"Kristoff?" she pants, hoping he'll chalk her breathlessness up to something, anything else.

She can hear him shuffling awkwardly on the other side of her bedroom door. "Olaf heard you shouting in your sleep, so he came and got me. Were you having a nightmare?"

She blushes harder, but for an entirely different reason. The idea of  _Olaf_ hearing her, combined with the idea of Kristoff racing halfway across the castle to protect her from nonexistent demons… she worries at her lip, feeling guilty. "It's not important," she says, keeping her language neutral. She doesn't like the idea of lying to him outright; she's done so much of it already. "Go back to bed."

"Do you need a warm hug?" Olaf asks, and Anna sinks deeper into her pillows, mortified, wishing she could drown there.

What she  _needs_ is a cold bath.

"I'm fine, Olaf," she says instead, and at least her voice almost sounds normal again. "Thank you."

She hears muffled conversation—Kristoff dismissing Olaf, if she had to guess—and then the soft, heavy sound of someone resting their body against the door. (She'd know that sound  _anywhere._ )

"I get them too, you know," Kristoff admits, and she wishes the sound wouldn't carry through the wood, wishes she didn't have to hear this. He's so  _good._ Why does he have to be so good? "If you ever want to talk about it."

And then he's gone, and she's a horrible, rotten person, and she has to tell him tomorrow, she can't take this anymore.

… Screw it, she's been saying 'tomorrow' for days.

She launches herself out of bed, barely wrenching her door open in time to avoid crashing into it.

"Kristoff, wait!" Her voice echoes in the quiet, dark hallway, and she winces at the way the sound carries. He stops short at the end of the hall, looking at her over his shoulder, and she coughs. "You should come back," she says, over-correcting her voice until it's nothing but a whisper, but he must hear because he all but jogs back to her side.

"Yeah?" he asks when he's close, and that would have been the better idea, catching up and talking instead of shouting loud enough to wake the whole castle, whatever, she'll do that next time. If there is a next time.

"Um. Hi."

"Hi," he repeats, mouth turning up at the corners.

"Let's, um…" Anna murmurs, before grabbing his hand and leading him back into her bedroom. Not knowing where to go, she sits on the edge of the bed, encouraging him to sit next to her. The bed dips with his weight as he settles, tipping her into him, and she doesn't know how to do this. How to say something that will hurt someone so badly, on purpose.

She lets go of his hand, wrapping her own fingers together in a tight lock over her lap.

_Knock,_ she thinks.  _Just knock._

"Anna?" he finally asks, when she's stalled for about a minute.

She keeps her eyes trained on the floor. "I wasn't dreaming about… I mean. I've been trying to tell you I—that I—" She runs her hands over her thighs, smoothing non-existent wrinkles in her nightgown, and tries a different angle. "You know that I love you, right?" Sure, she's never said it before, but—he must  _know._

His eyes blow out wide. "Uh, y-yeah. Yeah. Yes, I knew that," he stutters, in the sort of voice one doesn't tend to hear, generally, from people who know things. He shakes his head a little, as if to clear it. "And I mean, uh, I lo—"

"Don't," Anna says, holding a hand out. "Don't say it yet. Okay? Not until you know everything."

"What is there to know? I mean, I know I gave you lip about marrying a guy you just met, but we're not like that— _I'm_ not like that, I wouldn't—"

"Kristoff," she whispers brokenly, effectively cutting him off, then takes a deep breath. "Look. I'm just going to have to… I'm going to talk for a minute, and you have to let me, and then it can be your turn, okay? Because otherwise I'll never say it."

His eyes search her face, probably looking for clues as to why she's being so weird, but he nods. "Okay."

"The other day, while you were gone, I kissed Rapunzel. I wasn't thinking. It wasn't about her, or you, or anything like that, it was just something that felt right so I did it. And ever since, I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out what's in my heart, and it's been so unfair to you I can barely stand it, and I'm—I'm sorry. I'm just really, really sorry, Kristoff, that I've dragged you into everything when I'm so…" She swallows. "I never wanted to hurt you. Sometimes I think you're the best thing that ever happened to me, but that's not a reason for you to love me, is it? And I don't want us to be together because  _I_ want us to, I want it to be because  _you_ do. Which meant I had to tell you. So. So now you know."

All he does is stare at her, expression inscrutable, a muscle working in his jaw.

"Kristoff? I-it's your turn now."

"Can I go?" he asks roughly, shoulders stiff, and Anna can feel her heart  _crack_ and then drift apart in pieces, like ice. (She's not even cold, now. Just numb.)

She opens her mouth, but the back of her throat's closed up and she can't make the words come out. "If that's what you want," she finally says, because outright giving him permission is beyond her.

He closes the door behind him, when he leaves.

* * *

He's gone when she wakes up the next morning.

It's not like she expected him at breakfast, or anything—she figured he'd avoid her for a while (or forever)—but for some reason, she hadn't expected Elsa to say that he'd left for the mountains as soon as the sun was up.

She manages to keep herself from breaking her neck sliding down the banister on the way to the stables, which is a save she'd be more proud of if she hadn't body slammed Rapunzel like five seconds later because she wasn't looking where she was going.

"Ow! I mean, sorry!"

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine," Rapunzel says, rubbing her head. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"Nowhere. The mountains. Kristoff's gone. I told him about us, about—" obviously Rapunzel knows what that means, even if they've barely spoken since it happened, "and he left, and—I have to fix it. He can't just leave. He wasn't supposed to leave."

"Can I help?" Rapunzel asks, and she  _means_ it, that's the part that gets Anna, how does she even manage to find people like this, she doesn't—

"Just be here when I get back, okay?" she blurts. She wants to take it back, except then she wouldn't get to see the way Rapunzel's looking at her, which she doesn't even have a word for. She just knows it's good.

"Okay."

* * *

Sven has never climbed more slowly as far back as Kristoff can remember—and that's including when they walked away from Anna the first time.

_She's with her true love,_ he'd said then, and now he kind of wants to be sick.

"Come on, buddy, I don't have all day," he says, pulling on the bridle. He'd dismounted after it became clear Sven wouldn't go anywhere under his own power, but it's pretty hard to drag a fully grown reindeer up a mountain.

Sven gives him a Look.

"Don't start with me," Kristoff warns, but the Look continues. He stops walking. "You weren't there, you didn't hear her. She doesn't want me, she only wants to help herself. And if that's what it was going to be, Rapunzel can have her."

" _But that's not actually what she said,_ " Sven protests.

"Yeah, well, she might as well have." Kristoff grabs for the harness and starts pulling again. "I don't know why I even stayed there as long as I did. We stick together, you and me. We don't need anyone else."

" _Then why are you going to ask Grand Pabbie for advice?_ "

"Shut up, Sven."

* * *

If she were Kristoff, she thinks, she'd want to do the same thing she herself did—get some counsel. For him, that means his family, so at least she has a solid destination in mind as she sets off on Magnus.

Of course, if she were Kristoff, she would actually know where she's going.

It's not like she hasn't been there before! She should technically be able to find the Valley of the Living Rock no problem. It's just that the only time she took the route between it and the castle she was kind of delirious, and also they ran straight across the fjord, which is no longer an option.

But like. How hard could it be to find some trolls?

* * *

For supposed love experts, his family actually sucks at giving advice.

"I just don't see what the issue is, dear," his mother says, sounding genuinely baffled. "She said she loved you."

"No, she said  _You know I love you, right?_ That's not the same thing."

"The difference being what, exactly?"

"The—she—if you can't say it straight, you shouldn't say it at all. It's like a cheat."

His mother only blinks at him, and he sighs. He knows this is hard for her, for any of them, to understand. Troll love is so far removed from human love that he might as well be speaking a different language. It's why he had to be so explicit about Hans when he came here last time; it's probably why he's always been closer with Sven than he ever got to any of the other ice harvesters, now that he's thinking about it. With the trolls, everything is so straightforward: you find what, and who, makes you happy and that's it. Things like gender and monogamy never really came up.

But the real world—the one he has to live in now—isn't like that.

"And speaking of which," he adds, "she cheated."

"So she kissed someone else. Is that such a big thing, kissing?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Because it shows she didn't really mean it. She can talk about how she feels all she wants, but if she can't show it it's still a lie."

"Because she might love Rapunzel… what, more than you? Instead of you?"

" _Yes._ "

"Well that's ridiculous," Bulda sniffs, and he groans.

"You have to say that, you're my mother."

"Fine then. Don't listen to me; listen to Pabbie," she says, gesturing to the old troll, who'd been sitting quietly and listening the whole time. "Go on, Pabbie, tell him."

Pabbie only shakes his head. "It is not for me to tell Kristoff what should or should not be in his own heart. Hearts are not persuadable creatures."

"But it's not myheart that's the problem; it's Anna's," Kristoff protests, thinking  _as usual_ but not saying it. Even this anger has limits.

"No, Kristoff, it is yours. All this talk of  _more than_ or  _instead of._ Why can it not be  _also_? We warned you these things could happen, that the human world is not like ours. They contort themselves into such shapes, trying to fit in. It erodes the soul. Can you do that to yourself? To Anna?"

He thinks about everything Anna's already been though—the things they've been through together—and swallows thickly. He doesn't want Anna to lose herself, or change who she is. He loves who she is.

_I don't want us to be together because_ I  _want us to, I want it to be because_ you  _do._

Maybe she really does love who he is, too. He should have been listening.

"Why do you hurt, Kristoff?" Pabbie asks, and Kristoff pauses; he really thinks about it.

"Because… because when she keeps things from me, it makes me feel replaceable. Like I'm not enough for her. And she's a princess, so I know that already, I know I'm not, but she'd never made me feel like that before. She shut me out, and let someone else in instead."

"So don't tell us, tell her!" Bulda cries, and Pabbie nods his approval.

"Heal the wound you have, Kristoff. Not the one you think you should."

Kristoff considers this, his jaw setting firm and resolute as he stands. "I will. Thank you Grand Pabbie. And thanks, Ma."

Bulda and Pabbie watch as he departs, riding away on Sven with purpose.

"The right medicine, huh?" Bulda laughs, and Pabbie shrugs.

"Heads are always easier to treat. Eventually, the heart will follow."

* * *

Okay yeah, Anna's pretty sure she's lost.

They're navigating a craggy, rock-filled area that doesn't look familiar at all, but then again, last time she was here everything was covered in snow and ice. The ground is too uneven to trust Magnus on his own, so she leads him carefully, testing each footfall before she commits.

Or at least, that was the plan.

She sort of missteps.

For a second she thinks she can pull herself back—she's got a hold of Magnus' reins and that's fine, she's fine—but after a second of dangling in midair her grip fails and then she's tumbling, feet scrambling for purchase on the steep incline.

Something in her left ankle  _twists,_ painfully, when she lands twenty feet below. Tears spring to her eyes, and she can hear herself babbling ("Nice job, Anna, really nailed the landing there, ow, ow, ow…") but feels strangely detached from it, like she's not actually saying the words.

_Boy_ does it hurt.

When she finally gets a hold of herself, she can just manage to see Magnus peering down at her when she cranes her neck. She thinks he's trying to figure out why she's down here while he's up there, and the more she gets to know him the more certain she becomes that he's not very bright.

"Go! Go for help, Magnus! Go on, boy!"

Magnus blinks at her.

"So what, you'll ditch me in the snow because you're spooked, but when I actually need you to run back to the castle for me, you won't? Yeah, Sven's  _definitely_ my favorite now."

Magnus huffs, and disappears from the top of the cliff.

She hopes he's disappearing in a helpful direction, at least.

* * *

Kristoff's working his way through one of the trickier rocky passages with Sven when he hears it.

"…had just about enough of this, okay? Stop being rude."

That's… that's Anna. Alarmed, he follows the voice.

"Alright, kid gloves are coming off, we're gonna have a serious talk. Okay? Okay. Listen up, rock wall. I've come a long way, I have barely slept, and it's going to take a lot more than you and a busted ankle to slow me down, so cut me a break here."

There's a steep drop-off just ahead, and as he crests it enough to look down, he can see Anna in the ravine beneath, clinging to the cliff face just like she had on the North Mountain.

"You're sure showing it who's boss," he says, crossing his arms over his chest, and she falls to the ground, surprised. Belatedly, he sees the aforementioned swollen redness of her left ankle, and he winces in sympathy before schooling his expression back into something more annoyed.

"Kristoff!" she yelps, before swiftly composing herself. As much as Anna ever does, anyway. "I, um. Hi."

"Hi. What are you doing here?"

"I fell."

"I can see that. What I mean is, what are you doing out here at all? Why aren't you at the castle with  _Rapunzel?_ " he asks, and he'd tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, he really did.

She looks at him like he's crazy. "Because you're out here."

Oh.

"Oh," he says, because that's pretty much where he is right now.

"Yeah," she says, before blowing her bangs out of her eyes. She's got that same look on her face she had the other day when she hammered her thumb—that sort of unsurprised annoyance at herself. "I think I'm stuck."

He starts walking carefully along the lip of the crevice. "Hold on, I'll see if I can find you a route."

She shakily gets to her feet. "Sounds like a plan. See, that's all I needed. You're my bird's eye view; you're my mountain guide. I'm looking at it from the wrong angle."

"Yeah, okay."

"Boy am I glad you came along. I mean, again. I'm glad about the first time, too, I just—wait, don't put your foot—"

The  _there_ gets drowned out by Sven's frantic braying as Kristoff trips over the same slippery rock she must've. She places herself beneath him as he tumbles, arms spread wide, but crumbles under his weight when he falls on top of her.

"Oof!"

Everything hurts, but her sharp elbows are still softer than the ground would have been. "What did you do that for, are you insane?"

"Probably," she wheezes as he scrambles off of her. "That looked a lot easier when you did it for me."

"I weigh as much as two of you, and you've only got use of one leg! Are you okay?"

"Me? Sure, yeah. Just, y'know. Ow. Are  _you_ okay?"

"I'm fine. You're such an idiot sometimes," he grumbles, reaching out to check her for further injuries, and the way she leans into his touch makes his fingertips tingle and his chest feel tight.

He expects her to fight him, or deny it, or sass back, but instead she just drops her gaze and says "I know" in the tiniest voice he's ever heard from her.

"But I mean," he says, swallowing, "I am, too. So we match."

Her smile is instant and world-shifting, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

* * *

"Anna's been gone a long time," Rapunzel notes in a carefully neutral voice as she and Elsa reset the chess board. (Elsa's winning so far, but Rapunzel's determined to win best five out of nine.)

"She has, but I don't want to rush her; she and Kristoff have a lot to talk about."

"That's assuming she's managed to track down Kristoff at all," Eugene notes from behind the book he's reading. Rapunzel glares at him.

"Anna's more than capable of navigating her own lands."

He lowers his book but raises a brow. "I'm not saying she's not. But I just want to point out that last time she was in those woods—if we take her at her word—she nearly died of hypothermia, got attacked by wolves, fell off a cliff—"

"I trust Anna to take care of herself," Elsa grits out, and the others don't mention the sudden chill in the room.

When Kai bursts in twenty minutes later to say Anna's horse has returned without her, Eugene's so worried he forgets to say I told you so.

* * *

"I'm sorry I got us into this mess," Anna admits as the light around them starts to fail. It's still late afternoon, but the depth of the valley and the height of the trees make a bad combination. Kristoff had tried, for a while, to scramble back up the way he came, but it's no go.

Sven stands guard above them, as distinctive a landmark as they could hope for should anyone come looking for them. Now Anna sits with her foot in Kristoff's lap as he keeps it elevated and compressed, applying gentle pressure with his hands. She wishes she could feel it, but mostly it just hurts.

"It's not your fault I slipped," he sighs.

Anna rolls her eyes. "Not this mess," she says, waving a hand to indicate the ravine, " _this_ mess." She wiggles her hand between the two of them, as if to say  _you and me._ "Not that I think you're a mess. I'm a mess. You're perfect."

He blinks. "Wait, what?"

"You're perfect," she repeats, easily, simply, without a hint of a stutter, and all he can think is that nobody's ever said that about him before, not even his own family. He's always been a work in progress. A fixer-upper. Not—"Well, perfect for me, anyway, but it's all the same thing, isn't it?"

He takes her in—the blue of her eyes and the dirt and scratches on her face, the twigs in her braids. She's beautiful. "Anna, why did you follow me?"

"I… I don't know. I didn't even think about it. You were gone so I had to find you. It didn't feel like much of a decision."

"Oh."

"Or I mean, that's a lie. I do know. It—I love you."

"Say that again."

"I love you."

He takes a deep breath, and tries to ignore the swell of emotion building in his chest, the one that makes him feel taller, stronger, better than he's ever been. "But I'm not the only one."

Her face falls. "Will you please let me explain? From the beginning? Because I really messed it up last night and—and it's okay, if you never want to see me again after this, or I mean, not  _okay,_ but I'd accept it if that's what you wanted—but I want you to know the whole story, first. Can we do that?"

"I'm literally a captive audience," he points out, jutting his chin to emphasize the half-dozen yards that separate them from the path.

"Which is why I won't talk about it if you don't want to," Anna says.

He's quiet for a long moment, considering his options. "… I'd like to hear it."

So she tells him everything. About the way her heart speeds up every time Rapunzel touches her, and how she hadn't noticed until she  _noticed_ and now she can't stop noticing. About Joan of Arc, and the paint war, and how Eugene called her Red. She leaves out the dreams, but only because she has them about him, too, and she doesn't want to make him uncomfortable.

It's dark by the time she finishes. "Elsa pretty much said I wouldn't know unless I tried, so… this is me trying."

Kristoff leans back against the rock wall, resting his head on the cool stone in an effort to stop it from spinning. "And where do I fit in with 'trying?'"

"Wherever you want to," Anna says earnestly. "If you wanted to start spending more time with Rapunzel and Eugene, that would be  _amazing,_ but you don't have to; it can just be us. Or you don't have to be with me at all. Or anyone. But I hope you will."

Everything in him is warring against this, warning bells going off in his head, but his heart…

"We can't just do whatever we want; we're not trolls."

"What's that supposed to mean? What do trolls do?"

"They don't think of love like we do, for them it's all about community and, I don't know, romance. It's why they wanted to marry us off the second they met you—to them, stuff like that isn't a big deal. It's just about making a bigger family."

"Why don't they get jealous?"

"Probably because they're  _trolls._ Humans aren't made the same; you pick one person and you stop."

"Okay but— _why_? Why does it have to be like that?"

"B-because—"

"Oh my gosh,  _Sven?_ " a manic voice sounds from above and far away, and Kristoff may be a lot less mad at Rapunzel now than he was when his day started, but boy does she have terrible timing. "Anna? Kristoff?"

"We're down here!" Anna shouts, right in his ear, and he winces.

Rapunzel's head pops over the top of the ridge. "You had us worried sick! Are you guys okay?"

"We're in one piece," Kristoff says, cradling Anna's injured ankle protectively. (Possessively?)

"Thank goodness. I, um. I'll have to get Elsa; I don't think I can get you out on my own. Hang in there!" she says before disappearing from view.

"Why not just let down your hair? Oh, wait," Kristoff mutters, and Anna bats him on the arm.

"Don't be rude!" she says, firm in that teasing way that's already so familiar, but then her eyes soften. "I—I know I put a lot on you today, but please don't be like that."

"Sorry," he mumbles, and he is. Mostly.

After another few minutes Rapunzel returns with Elsa and Eugene in tow, and then it's a simple matter of Elsa moving a few ice platforms around to get Anna loaded into the carriage they'd traveled up in, anticipating this very thing.

"Actually, we pretty much pictured you unconscious or half-eaten by wolves, so a sprained ankle's nothing," Eugene jokes as they pile in after her. Kristoff stays outside with Sven, monitoring the way Elsa's lips keep twitching, like she can't decide which emotion she's supposed to feel.

"I should be able to fix this," Rapunzel says in a low, sad voice, fingertips trailing gently over Anna's swollen ankle. "I'm sorry."

"Oh no, don't be! I'll take powerless-but-present Rapunzel over the alternative any d— _ow_."

"Slower!" Elsa yelps. "Don't whip your legs around like that, you're injured. Heaven and earth, what am I going to do with you?" she asks, voice rueful yet fond as she whips up an icy compress for the journey home.

As Kristoff looks from Anna to Rapunzel to Eugene, he figures they're all asking themselves the same question.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've increased the rating! It will go all the way up to "explicit" later, but for now it feels pretty mature.

When Elsa strategically passes by the library later that night, she doesn't expect to hear singing.

After they'd returned to the castle and gotten Anna checked out by the royal physician, Anna had insisted upon being deposited in the library for the rest of the evening—saying that if they were going to force her to sit still, they had to at least leave her somewhere where sitting still would be interesting. Rapunzel had elected to keep her company, Eugene had invited Kristoff out for a drink, and Elsa… Elsa had had work to do. Elsa always has work to do.

But that doesn't stop her from checking in from time to time, and right now, she's glad she did.

"— _power shine, make the clock reverse; bring back what once was mine. Heal what has been hurt, change the fate's design. Save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine. What once was mine…_ "

When she peeks in, she finds that Anna has fallen asleep amongst the pillows and blankets they'd propped her up in, book resting open against her chest. Rapunzel sits next to her, singing softly, fingers of her right hand tracing delicate patterns over Anna's injured ankle as they had the whole ride down the mountain. Elsa can't tell if she's honestly reading the book in her lap or just pretending to.

She purposefully scuffs her feet against the floor to announce her presence, and Rapunzel startles only slightly before lifting a finger to her lips. Elsa nods and sits down next to her.

"She's had a long day," Rapunzel explains in a whisper, and this… this indulgence, the quiet intimacy of someone other than herself caring so instinctively for Anna, warms her from the inside out. It only took a few days to get used to Kristoff's grumpy papa bear act, but this is something new.

Her eyes drop to Rapunzel's still-moving hand. "Old habits die hard?"

"I figured it couldn't hurt to try," Rapunzel admits, dropping her head so that her hair falls in front of her eyes. Elsa tries and fails to picture what that gesture would have looked like two years ago; still, the feeling of her own bare hands on the floor is enough for her to understand how exposed Rapunzel must feel in this moment. "Felt strange singing it, though."

"Oh?"

"I haven't in… a year, maybe? Eugene doesn't… I mean, I understand. The last time he heard it he was dying. Most of the time it upsets me to hear it, too. It reminds me of—well. But other times, it's really comforting to just… I…" Rapunzel swallows, upset, and Elsa reaches out to touch her wrist.

"Good book?" she asks.

Rapunzel's shoulders drop in relief at the subject change.

* * *

Kristoff doesn't know what he's doing here.

When Eugene had asked him if he knew of any good pubs he'd almost said no—having no interest in spending more time with Eugene or, frankly, any other humans for a while—but the lure of a strong drink had been too powerful after the events of the past twenty-four hours.

The only problem with that plan is that after a tankard of beer or two, Eugene's starting to look a lot less like the guy who's in on the conspiracy to steal Kristoff's girlfriend, and a lot more like the guy who saved him from wolves with a frying pan after they spent a week harvesting ice together. Eugene hasn't pushed or even talked much, other than to order the drinks. It should feel awkward but it doesn't, and Kristoff can't put his finger on why.

(He tries to think about how he hasn't kissed Anna since before they left on that trip, tries to keep his bitterness and frustration at the forefront of his mind, but it's a losing battle.)

"So," Eugene finally says, voice incredibly casual. "Troll family. What's that like?"

That's just about the last thing Kristoff expected him to ask, so it takes a second for his brain to catch up enough to answer the question. "Um. Good? Why?"

"It's a hell of a backstory, that's all. Getting adopted by magical beings after accidentally stumbling across a secret princess ritual?" He whistles. "I dreamed up a lot of ways to get out of the orphanage when I was a kid, and sure, a few of them involved saving the lost princess, but none of them had trolls. I guess I'm a little jealous."

Kristoff feels wrong-footed and strangely heavy, like he's been dropped into the middle of a scene no one let him rehearse for. He can't figure out Eugene's game, but he tries to play along. "Do you remember your parents?"

Eugene shakes his head. His eyes drop down to his glass as he says, "I got dropped off when I was only a baby. They weren't even sure if the woman who left me was my mother." He looks up at Kristoff. "You?"

"Yeah. A little."

Kristoff doesn't offer any more, but Eugene doesn't ask.

"I wanna tell you a story," he says instead.

"Is it the story of how you died?"

Eugene gasps, putting a hand to his heart. "What is it with you people and your lack of faith in my ability to tell more than one story?"

"Who people?"

"You and Anna. She said the same thing the other day when we were talking."

"Oh, right. You mean  _Red._ "

Eugene smiles, but Kristoff can't read the quirk of his lips through the slowly-building haze of alcohol. Smug smirk? Encouraging grin? Impossible to tell. "She told you about that, huh?"

"Yeah."

"But hey, that's not my story." He stretches back, then, raises an arm. "Barkeep? Another round?"

* * *

They've each been reading for nearly an hour, Anna snoring softly beside them, when Elsa finally drums up the courage to ask. "Do you miss it? Having your magic?"

"On days like today?" Rapunzel stares at the bandages on Anna's ankle. "More than anything."

"What about other days? Easy days?"

Rapunzel is quiet for so long that Elsa worries she's overstepped. "More now than I used to, I think," she finally says. "Right after, it was really more my hair that I missed, because it had been part of me for my whole life. It was like losing a limb. The magic, though… after I saved Eugene, I was glad it was gone. Because it kept me away from people for so long, you know?"

"Believe me, that I understand."

"But then I got frustrated with myself, because it felt like she was still controlling me. Dictating how I felt about my own body. My powers weren't dangerous, she just wanted to keep them to herself. It was never about me; it was only ever about her. From the very start. Sometimes… sometimes I think she never even saw me as a person at all." Rapunzel frowns, bunching up the blankets she's sitting on with her fists. "When I was little, she called me  _flower._ How messed up is that?"

"Yeah," Elsa murmurs, which isn't an answer, but she's suddenly remembering how her parents used to call her  _snowflake,_ when she was small. She forgets exactly when they stopped, but in hindsight she has a pretty good guess. What a kindness that had been—to refuse to define her like that. She'd never even thought about it. "But you said you miss your powers more, now?"

"Well, yeah. It's hard to watch people suffer and not be able to do anything. And not just on days like today when it's someone I really care about. A few weeks after I moved into the castle with my parents, they took me on a tour of the kingdom, and when we looked around the hospital I kind of had a panic attack? There was so much hurt, there, and all I wanted to do was sing it away, and I couldn't. I miss being able to do that."

"I don't blame you," Elsa says, cogs in her brain turning. "I wish my magic were like that."

"Like what?"

Elsa shrugs helplessly, mouth turning up an apologetic half-smile. "Helpful?"

"Oh, no, Elsa—"

"I just keep thinking about how if we'd had each other's powers, none of this ever would have happened. You know? I never could have hurt Anna by healing her. And if my powers somehow  _had_ gotten out of hand, they could have just cut my hair and been done with it. I could have… had my life. And if you'd had ice powers, Gothel would have had no use for you."

"Yeah, but—then I would have never met Eugene. Or worse, I would have met him and hated him! And I wouldn't trade what we have for anything."

"Not to mention," Anna chimes in, voice warm and sleep-scratched, "then Gothel might have gone after Elsa, and then I'd have never gotten her back. So I'm gonna go ahead and veto that plan."

Rapunzel jumps, but Elsa just rolls her eyes, raising an eyebrow at her sister. "And just how long have you been up?"

"Since you were getting all negative about your powers. Which are awesome, by the way."

"Thanks," Elsa says drily. "How's your ankle?"

"Oh, y'know. Throbbing. No big deal."

Elsa wordlessly whips up some fresh ice and tucks it between the bandages wrapped around Anna's ankle. "Any chance we can convince you to move your snoring concert to somewhere more appropriate? Like your bedroom?"

Anna gasps. "I do not  _snore,_ " she insists, looking between the two of them with indignation.

Rapunzel breaks and starts laughing first, but only by a few milliseconds.

* * *

Kristoff's never met anyone who can milk a moment quite like Eugene.

When fresh drinks are in front of them, Eugene squares his shoulders and starts talking. "Back in the day, when I was just a runt, I would read. A lot. Couldn't get enough of it. Real life was… hard, you know? Days always started and ended the same, never quite enough to eat. But books, they were all dragons and treasure and adventure."

Kristoff remembers that day he spent in the library with Anna with a pang. She'd promised him, after, that she'd teach him how to read, but… then he'd gotten busy, and then she'd been avoiding him, and so far it hasn't worked out.

Eugene heaves a sigh. "But the older kids would tease me about it.  _Eugene_ 's not the manliest name to begin with, but attach it to the skinny kid with his nose buried in a book? I was a goner. So I learned pretty quick that I had to hide what I was doing. I'd read at night, if the moonlight was good. Started to act up more during the day. Mouth off, get into fights. Like all the others did. But then when I'd ask the matrons for more books, they thought I was lying. They never saw me reading, so I had to have other motives. See? I was beat either way."

"That's awful," Kristoff says, because it is, and he can't think of anything else to say. He doesn't know how to comfort, or to distract people from their troubles like Anna does; he's not… good… with people. (Heck, he's so naïve he'd started to hope that the whole  _beat you and curse you and cheat you_ thing had maybe just been him, but here's Eugene, singing the same song. He hates it.) "So what did you do?"

"I let them beat me. Let it change me. I became a guy even I didn't like very much, because I figured that's what survival looked like. Still not sure if it was the right thing, but it got me this far, so I can't feel too bad about it." He takes a long sip of his beer, then wipes his mouth with the back of his arm. "Look, most of the things I thought I knew as an orphan turned out to be pretty messed up. I had to spend a long time unlearning them, maybe longer than I should have, and I own that. But after I met Rapunzel, this one felt truer than ever: you don't fight for the things you want? Nobody's gonna believe you want 'em."

"You mean Anna."

"I mean anything, but yeah, let's start there. Nobody wanted me near Rapunzel, after I brought her back; no one believed me when I said I'd had no idea she was the princess. They saw who they wanted to see. Most of them thought I only brought her back for the reward money—which I never saw a cent of, by the way. I turned it down."

Kristoff thinks about that first day in the market, when he'd taken off the blindfold and got an eyeful of that brand new sled and his first thought had been  _what's with the sled?_ because he'd honestly, legitimately forgotten it ever happened. He got Anna back; what more could he have wanted? And why didn't she know that?

Everything's starting to feel hazy and warm, and Kristoff drains his stein as he takes stock of the conversation, trying to figure out where they left off. "Wait, what does this have to do with the trolls?"

"I'm getting to that. Where was I?"

"The reward money."

"Oh, that was a tangent, that doesn't matter. Uh… fighting! I was fighting for her. So after I figured out I had to do that, I thought I was done. But that was kind of the easy part. You have to keep her. Them. You know?"

"Sure."

"So that's where the trolls come in. Rapunzel is my family. My whole family, the only one I've got."

This is what Kristoff's been waiting for. The you-take-yours, I-take-mine part where everything goes back to normal. His stomach flips once—unexpected and unpleasant—and he frowns, baffled. "Okay…?"

"So you're not gonna catch me ever, ever telling her what to do. She had a lifetime of that, of someone telling her 'family' meant doing what you're told, all those rules and being kept in the dark. I won't. I haven't always been perfect at it, but I knew what I was getting into when I married Rapunzel. I've got to let her be who she is. Far as I can tell, that's what loving her looks like."

"It really doesn't bother you?"

"I mean, it's… different, but Rapunzel's always been different." Eugene kicks him under the table, but it's light. Friendly. "And besides, I'm starting to get the impression it's really hard to  _not_ fall for Anna at least a little bit."

Kristoff doesn't have a name for the emotion curling in his gut, but it's not anger or jealousy or shame, so he'll take it. "She has that effect on people."

Eugene laughs, and shoves the last of his beer across the table. "So the question is, are you gonna let it bother  _you?_ "

Kristoff looks back and forth between Eugene's face and the beer. He's agreed to sloppier contracts, actually; ice harvesters rarely had anything else to sign on.

He raises an eyebrow. "You don't expect me to drink that, do you?"

"You share food with your reindeer. You think I'm dirtier than your reindeer?"

"You smell about the same."

Eugene kicks him again.

* * *

Tucking Anna in turns into a ridiculous, hour-long affair requiring six glasses of water, two hastily improvised bedtime stories, and an emergency run back to the library for the pillow they'd left that was, apparently, the only pillow of the right height and softness for Anna's ankle.

Rapunzel's kind of embarrassed at herself for being as charmed as she is.

"Okay, we're leaving now," Elsa says, but her authoritative voice is undercut by the wide grin on her face.

"But I'm going to be bored!"

"You said that last time and you fell asleep after seven minutes," Rapunzel points out.

"Fine. Abandon me in my injured condition," Anna keens melodramatically. "Just leave me here to die."

"Good _night_ , Anna," Elsa insists, before stepping out.

Anna laughs. "Night!"

"You know," Rapunzel points out quietly as she closes the door behind her, waiting until it's just her and Elsa in the quiet hallway before continuing, "I've been thinking about what you said. And… the only reason my mother needed the flower was because she found carrying me so difficult. They never tried to conceive after I was taken; it seemed too dangerous. So if we had switched powers… well. There probably never would have  _been_ an Anna."

Elsa's face contorts, and Rapunzel reaches out in sympathy. She's probably opening old wounds, but wounds, she's learned, need air and time to heal completely. They don't disappear with songs.

And anyway, Elsa does not mention regrets about her magic again, so Rapunzel's glad she said it.

* * *

Eugene's laying on top of their bed with an arm thrown over his eyes when she walks into their room.

"I should warn you," he says, "I probably had a bit too much to drink."

That would explain why he's still wearing his boots.

"You didn't try and match Kristoff, did you? He's massive, he could probably drink you under the table." She kicks off her shoes ( _finally_ ) and winds her way around to his side of the bed. "Ties, please?"

He grunts and sits up, and starts pulling at the laces on the back of her dress. "Actually, Kristoff's a lightweight; I don't think he gets out much. But the beer here packs a hell of a punch."

Her nose wrinkles. "If you say so."

"How's Anna?"

"She'll live—unless you hear her talk about it. I managed to have a pretty good conversation with Elsa, too. How's Kristoff?"

" _Quiet._  I was practically monologuing at the guy. But I think I got through."

Rapunzel steps out of her dress, letting it fall to the floor with a swish. "Okay, boots off."

He flops back down and pouts at her. "You do it."

Rolling her eyes, she pulls off his boots one by one and tosses them by the vanity. He seems comfortable enough, so she leaves the rest of it alone and clambers over him to try and get under the covers—a lost cause until he shimmies off the blanket enough to climb in himself. It's one of his most distinctly unsexy maneuvers, and she finds herself giggling.

"Something funny, Goldie?" he asks, peeping one eye open to give her a look.

"Just you."

"Oh, good."

He curls into her, and she can feel him getting hard against her thigh; relishes the drowsy pressure of it as he runs his fingers up her arm, making the hairs raise. It's cute. "Don't," she scolds with a smile. "We're both tired, and you drank too much,  _Flynn_."

"I wouldn't fall asleep," he assures her, ignoring the name comment in favor of kissing her neck lazily and giving an experimental thrust or two into the jut of her hip. His legs spread so that one is between hers, twining under her knee, the other flush against her side. Apparently too wiped out to do much more than that, he nuzzles his face into her jaw and adds, "if that's what you're worried about."

"You caught me," she says, trying not to laugh. She buries her hands in his hair, one scratching gently at the back of his neck while the other teases out the strands in a steady, soothing motion. She feels his breathing start to slow. "But I know you wouldn't. Of course you wouldn't."

"Nope. Would not," he mumbles. After about a minute, his fingers twitch just a bit against her side, and a few seconds later he relaxes fully on top of her, tension between his shoulders going slack.

She just keeps playing with his hair and doesn't stop until she falls asleep herself, listening to him breathe in her ear.

* * *

Someone is knocking on Anna's door, and she kind of wants to kill them.

Groaning, she turns away from the noise, but that just means she's facing the window, bright rays of sunlight piercing through the edges of her blinds. As she rolls over, her ankle starts to throb something fierce.

Worst. Morning. Ever.

"G'way," she orders as imperiously as she can with one of her braids sort of stuck in her mouth.

"But I brought breakfast," a voice says, Kristoff's voice, and suddenly she's launching herself out of bed, wincing and muttering  _ow_ every time her left foot hits the floor. Belatedly it occurs to her that she could have just told him it's unlocked, but whatever, too late now.

She throws the door open and finds herself beaming. "Hi," she says breathlessly.

"Hi," he echoes, holding up a tray laden with food, tea and, adorably, a thin vase with a single flower in it. "Can I…?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," she says, hobbling out of the way to let him in.

"Um, why're you… does your ankle still hurt?"

"Just a little, it's fine, why do you—hey!"

Kristoff scoops her up in one arm, carefully keeping the breakfast tray balanced in his other hand. "Jeez, Anna, why didn't you say anything?"

"The doctor said I'm allowed to put weight on it," she says, voice a little thinner than she intended because  _wow,_ wow he's strong, that's a thing. She'd kind of forgotten how that was a thing.

"Not while I'm around you're not," Kristoff grumbles, depositing her on the bed. She pushes herself back against the headboard as he sets down the tray carefully between them. "Anyway, um. I'm sorry I was such a jerk yesterday."

"What? No. I've been the jerk lately, you were just… I took you by surprise."

"I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I…" He scrubs a hand over his face, trying to compose his thoughts. Trying to remember what's important.

_They contort themselves into such shapes, trying to fit in,_ Grand Pabbie had said.  _Can you do that to yourself? To Anna?_

_She had a lifetime of that,_ Eugene had said,  _of someone telling her 'family' meant doing what you're told, all those rules and being kept in the dark. I won't. Far as I can tell, that's what loving her looks like._

"I don't want you to be anyone other than yourself, okay? Not even for me. Especially not for me. It wasn't right for me to make you feel any different, and I apologize."

"I accept! But…" Anna bites her lip, looking anywhere but at him. "What if I want… what if I  _do_  something that…?"

"You're worth it," he says, reaching out to put a hand on her knee. Her eyes snap right to his face at the contact. "And you deserve it. All of it. You're the most loveable person I've ever met."

He stares at her earnestly, willing her to hear what he's saying.  _You know I love you, right?_

She smiles. "What about Sven?"

"Ah, Sven's a carrot hog." He realizes his hand is still on her knee, thumb moving slowly back and forth in a lazy caress. It feels right. "Look. Yesterday you called me perfect, and I'm not. It's important that you know that. I'm probably going to mess up again, or get jealous, and I'm sorry. I'm going to work on it. But… I promise I'll do everything I can to be perfect for you, as long as you'll let me." He looks up at her through his bangs. "Does that… sound okay?"

She climbs over the breakfast tray to kiss him properly, and even though there's spilled tea soaking through his trousers and jam on her nightgown, for the first time since Kristoff got back from harvesting he feels like he's home.

* * *

Things go back to normal. Or, well, normal's the wrong word, their lives have never been normal, but things get easier, anyway.

Anna notices it as they resume reconstruction on the castle, watching as Rapunzel practically straddles the sawhorse she's using to get the right angle and leverage on the plank she's cutting.

There's sawdust in Rapunzel's hair, turning the chestnut locks blonde, and if Anna squints she can almost imagine what Rapunzel must have looked like, before. At least in part. The color is one thing, but Anna doesn't think she'll ever be able to quite picture the sheer length of Rapunzel's lost hair. The short, perpetually-messy cut just suits her, and besides—Rapunzel's so not the type to be weighted down by anything.

Or maybe that's the point.

"Is there something on my face?" Rapunzel asks self-consciously when she notices Anna's eyes on her.

But Anna likes Rapunzel like this, dirt-specked and untidy, so she just shrugs and shakes her head.

Eugene notices it when they all take a trip into town after deciding the weather was too good to waste working indoors. He chuckles to himself as he watches the girls dance their way through the marketplace. Rapunzel lets herself get led off by the hand by some children into a skipping game; Anna laughs and chats with the vendors.

Before he came to Arendelle, he'd thought Rapunzel was the only princess in the world with that capacity for love. To see all of her subjects as people, to want to know their stories, know  _them._ But Anna is so much the same—sometimes more so—and it's overwhelming. He'd think it was the way they grew up, but hell, he grew up alone too, and he's not like that. The orphanage meant being alone in a crowd of people, but he thinks it was no less lonely than what they endured.

He spares a glance behind him, where Kristoff is escorting Elsa by the arm, slower, taking their time. Hell. They all grew up alone.

He thinks they're doing pretty alright, for all that.

Rapunzel notices it when Kristoff stalks out of the library one day, looking red and upset, and after Anna explains that she's been trying to teach him to read but she's no good at it, she either goes too fast or tries to do the work for him and she knows it's not going well, Eugene just gets up and goes after Kristoff himself. By the end of the day they're halfway through the first edition of Flynnigan Rider.

Kristoff notices it when Rapunzel invites herself to one of these little lessons, kicking off her shoes and settling in on the couch next to him, her bare feet pressing against his thigh. Eugene doesn't seem to notice or care that his wife is cuddling with another man.

And Kristoff knows she's like this, affectionate and open, he sees her do it with Anna, but that's  _RapunzelandAnna._ He knows now that that's got nothing to do with him. But then there's him and Anna, and he just doesn't know… how this is supposed to work. He doesn't want to break any rules, and still his heart quickens.

Elsa spends every dinner beaming, surrounded by light and love and loud conversation. She's never felt more secure in her life.

And if anyone were to look under the table, they'd see Anna's hand resting gently on top of Rapunzel's.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: THE PENULTIMATE PORTION OF THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GRAPHIC (albeit extremely tasteful, imo) DESCRIPTIONS OF SEX. IF THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO WITNESS HAPPEN WITH DISNEY CHARACTERS, READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. On a similar note, that scene also contains wildly inaccurate depictions of late eighteenth century men's sleepwear, but hey, if one of Jasmine's suitors can wear boxers with hearts on them in Aladdin, I think I'm allowed to give Kristoff pajama separates with buttons.

Anna, Rapunzel has learned, is fearless.

It doesn't matter what she's doing—fighting off wolves or going after her sister or even things as mundane as talking to merchants—she goes after it with the same sort of carefree confidence. Like she's a strong enough force that she can just bend the world to her will. Most of the time, Rapunzel believes it.

But that doesn't stop her from wishing Anna would be more careful.

"Those aren't meant for swinging," she reminds Anna, who's using a window washer's scaffold to mend a broken cornice. A little too enthusiastically, if you ask Rapunzel.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm almost done."

"Just be careful."

"I am being careful! I'm the  _queen_ of careful!"

"More like the princess of pratfalls," Rapunzel mutters under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!"

She's been thinking a lot about what it took for Anna to bring back summer, lately.

Rapunzel's often dreamt of Eugene dead in her tower, of singing and singing and singing and nothing ever happening. It barely even feels like a nightmare anymore, she's so used to it by now. But to picture the story as Elsa tells it… it's hard enough to imagine Anna  _still,_ let alone frozen forever in a moment. She's glad she wasn't there to see it; wonders how Kristoff and Elsa can stand to look at her, sometimes, and not see her crystallized in ice. She doesn't think she could stand it. Even now, she hates seeing the scar in Eugene's side, the one she couldn't quite cry away, even as she brought him back.

She thinks about the way Anna described that Joan of Arc painting, and wonders what it is about her that makes her attracted to these people—the ones who love to death.

"There, see?" Anna says, hopping back onto the parapet. "All done." With a start, Rapunzel realizes that she'd been so absorbed in her thoughts that she'd barely been paying attention to Anna, and she bites her lip in guilt.

"Good. Can we call it a day now?"

Anna smirks. "Why, is my incredible skill with a hammer and chisel getting to be too much for you?" Anna shoots her a hilariously flirtatious look—or is it flirtatiously hilarious?—and Rapunzel, torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to kiss her, wraps her up in a giggly hug instead.

"You caught me," she confesses into one of Anna's braids, "I can't control myself around manual laborers. Or sculptors. It's a curse." She tries to pull away, but Anna holds her fast.

"Hey, um, wait," Anna mumbles, trying to keep her voice casual, but Rapunzel can feel the way she's shaking. "While I have you here, we might as well… I mean. Have you ever thought about… trying again? With us?"

Rapunzel leans back so that she can look Anna fully in the eyes. "All the time."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Like, now?"

"I'm not busy; are you?"

Anna laughs more to fill the silence than because it was actually funny, closes her eyes, and leans forward until she feels something.

For a long moment, Anna just lets herself get swept away in the kiss, enjoying the way her own mouth seems to know how to move in response to Rapunzel's careful advances. It's—good. Different than anything she's used to—softer, more unsure—but she feels it all the way to her toes.

Then all of that pressure and heat and skill is suddenly gone as Rapunzel pulls away, and Anna opens her eyes slowly, almost fearful to find out what will be standing before her.

But it is still only Rapunzel, messy hair flopping adorably over her forehead, green eyes blazing with concern and affection. Like she's something special. Someone to be adored.

Anna could get used to being looked at like that.

"Everything okay?" Rapunzel asks, with that little break, that crackle in her voice she gets when she's nervous. (Maybe it's selfish for Anna to adore that crackle as much as she does, but, well…)

She grins. "Perfect."

"Hey, ladies!" Eugene calls from down below, and they spring apart. He smirks at them, like he knows what they've been doing. Knowing Eugene, he probably has a pretty good idea. "You'd better get down and come to the banquet hall; you'll never believe what we've gotten Elsa to agree to." He makes to leave, then turns back around. "Oh, and bring gloves."

In Anna's experience, that's never been a good warning.

* * *

 

When they walk in, the banquet hall has been converted to a veritable winter wonderland.

"What brought this on?" Anna asks, darting between snowflakes as she investigates the lay of the land. Elsa's abilities are extraordinary to be sure, but it's these smaller things—the sheer awe of the fact that it's  _snowing indoors—_ that impress Anna most.

"Well, Kristoff and I were talking about ice—"

"For like an  _hour,_ " Eugene adds.

"—and he mentioned that he'd never been in a snowball fight before."

Anna's jaw drops as she looks at her boyfriend in horror. "Wait,  _never?_ "

"We were always busy!" he says, throwing his hands up. "After a day of harvesting, believe me, your arms are too tired to do anything else."

"Well that's—that's just—" Anna sputters, retroactively upset on behalf of baby Kristoff, "We have to fix it!"

"Which is why Eugene suggested this," Elsa explains, waving an arm to indicate her new decorating scheme.

Rapunzel, who'd already managed to tuck herself under Eugene's arm in the thirty or so seconds since they'd entered, looks up at him with a smile. "Awwww, you did?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, well, I know it was important to you, the first winter we spent together, so…"

"You're adorable," Rapunzel says, getting up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. (Adorable is pretty low on the list of adjectives Anna might use to describe Eugene, but hey, Rapunzel married him.) "So what are the rules?"

"Rules?" Anna asks, brow furrowing. "There are no rules. Snowball fights are  _war._ "

"The teams aren't exactly even," Kristoff points out, gesturing between them and Elsa, who laughs.

"Anna, think about it. Did you ever win a snowball fight against me in your life?"

The fact that this is a thing they do now, this teasing, talk-about-the-past thing, is pretty much Anna's favorite. "We  _tied._ "

"No, I  _let_ you—okay, you know what, let's just let that go. So, rules: I won't use my powers to make lackeys or for immediate offensive or defensive needs, only to replenish supplies. Pillars are safe zones. Last person standing w—"

She's cut off by a snowball to the face, and shoots Anna a scandalized look.

Anna shrugs. "What can I say? I'm a stinker."

It's the last full sentence anyone gets in for a while.

* * *

 

Kristoff likes to believe he's adjusting pretty well to all the insane changes in his life recently. He's learning to adapt, he and Anna are closer than ever, everyone's happy.

And then Anna gets it in her head that they haven't spent enough time together outside their respective relationships. Which, Kristoff respects that, and can see why it's important to her, but…

"A swap?" he repeats, because he's not sure he heard right the first time. Elsa only left the breakfast table five minutes ago; how could things go so sideways in five minutes?

"Just for the day! And like, I'm not saying anybody has to  _do_ anything, I just think it would be nice if we all got to know each other better. For all I know, Eugene could be, I don't know… allergic to fish. I could kill him!"

"I'm not allergic to fish," Eugene volunteers from across the table, and she waves a hand at him.

"Not the point." She turns back to Kristoff. "You and Rapunzel have a ton in common, and I think it's a shame that you haven't explored that."

Kristoff raises an eyebrow. "Really."

"Yes, really! You're blond, she used to be blonde; you both like animals; she plays guitar, you play guitar—"

"You play guitar?" Rapunzel asks excitedly, spoon clattering onto her bowl, and Kristoff swallows.

"I play  _lute._ "

"Same difference," Anna says dismissively at the same time as Eugene shrugs and says, "Nuance." The two grin at each other.

And okay, it's not even  _that_ that bothers Kristoff. He can spend the day with Rapunzel, sure, and he's not that jealous of the fact that Anna and Eugene are so weirdly similar sometimes. Not really.

It's just that he's not sure they can spend the day together without setting something on fire.

(Heck, Anna managed to do that to his sled all on her own; who knows the kind of trouble she could get into with Eugene's help? The guy was a notorious criminal for years, and Kristoff's heard Kai's stories about the mischief Anna used to get up to. It just doesn't sound safe.)

" _Please,_ Kristoff?" she asks, leaning in close enough that he can count every freckle on her cheeks, eyes wide and hopeful.

… That's not fair.

* * *

 

The biggest difference between Anna and Rapunzel, Kristoff thinks, is that Rapunzel actually has the capacity to be quiet when she puts her mind to it. They tune in relative silence in the courtyard—Rapunzel hadn't wanted to stay inside on such a nice day—then start… well, showing off for each other. Or at least, he knows he's showing off, a little bit. He's more of a fingerpicker and she's more of a strummer, but they actually manage to make some pretty decent music together, all things considered.

He's never played along with anyone before. He… kind of likes it.

"So who taught you to play?" he asks, after she's walked him through the chord progressions of a drinking song she'd learned from friends of Eugene's. (There were some words in there he still thinks princesses just shouldn't know, but she'd sung them with such  _enthusiasm_ …)

"I taught myself."

He whistles. "Really? You're—you're really good."

"Thanks! I… used to have a lot of time on my hands." She clears her throat. "What about you? Who taught you to play?"

"My dad," he admits quietly. He can feel the corners of his mouth pulling up at the memory, though he doesn't think he can turn it into a full smile. "I was so small, I couldn't even wrap my hand all the way around the neck to make the chords—and even when I'd cheat, I didn't have the calluses to hold down the strings for more than a few seconds at a time. It was a disaster."

"It sounds adorable."

"Yeah, well," he mumbles, staring at the floor. He rubs his sweaty palms over his thighs, feeling nervous. He doesn't know why he… "I've never even told Anna that."

Rapunzel reaches out to still his hands with her own. "Your secret is safe with me."

* * *

 

The great thing about Eugene is that he's pretty much up for anything. Stroll by the docks? He's game. Tour through the market? He's your man.

Lesson in how to pick pockets?

Fine, that one took some convincing first.

"This is a terrible idea," he groans as Anna bounces beside him.

"This is an awesome idea!"

"Elsa's going to throw me in the stocks for this. Local children will pelt me with fruit; my reputation will be ruined forever."

"Please, we don't even have a stockade. … I don't think, anyway."

"Well that makes me feel better."

"Come on, Eugene," she says, tugging at his arm. "How am I supposed to get by in this big, bad world without these kinds of life skills?"

"Hey, you want skills, I'm happy to teach you skills. Every princess should know self defense, for example. But since when is petty theft on that list?"

"To protect myself! How am I supposed to avoid pickpockets if I don't know how they think?"

He looks annoyed at how much sense that makes. "You're not gonna give up on this, are you?"

"Nope!"

(She never gives up on anything ever; has he met her?)

He sighs and takes her hand, pulling her away from the street until he finds a nice patch of wall to lean against. She copies his nonchalant pose.

"Pickpocketing is like street magic; it's all about sleight of hand. The best work in teams of two or more, with one guy providing the distraction while the other does the dirty work, but for now, let's say it's just you. What's your first step?"

"Um… find a crowd to disappear into?" she guesses, gesturing around them.

"Good instincts! The best pickpockets are invisible, forgettable. Which puts you at a bit of a disadvantage, seeing as everyone knows exactly who you are."

"But it also means I'm good at distractions! You said that was important."

He chuckles. "I did; we'll get there. Next, you have to pick your mark."

Anna doesn't even think about it; she just points. "Him."

He follows her finger to a merchant with an impressive beard haggling with a sailor. "That guy? Why that guy?"

"He's the worst! He takes advantage, and used to shortchange Kristoff all the time; Kristoff won't even sell ice to him anymore, because he loses too much money. But he basically has a monopoly on mountaineering supplies, so nobody can stand up to him. And there's nothing Elsa and I can do about it because he's not technically doing anything wrong."

"Okay, so he's a horrible person," Eugene says, his casual shrug belied by the angry grit of his teeth. "But he's an even worse target."

"What? Why?"

"Anna, look at him. He's surrounded by people, he's got his eyes on his merchandise, and you can tell he's obsessed with keeping as much for himself as he can. You'd never get away with it."

"Well that's not fair! I have to steal from someone nice because the sucky people are too selfish to get robbed?"

He gives her a look. "Gonna go ahead and remind you that you don't  _have_ to steal from anyone, but yeah, that tends to be how it goes."

"But—that's awful!"

"Can't say I knew many guys who lost sleep over it. Most thieves aren't in the game for the whole  _rob from the rich to give to the poor_  angle." He frowns, considering her expression. "Hey, did you take me here just to see if you could pull one over on that guy?"

"No! Or, I mean, maybe…" Anna looks put out, but Eugene knows better by now than to just expect her to drop the idea. She scans the marketplace for a long moment. "So… someone like her, she'd be a good target?"

She juts her chin over to a young mother, getting turned about by three boys all vying to hold her two hands, wanting to pull her in different directions. They're loud, commanding every ounce of her attention. Her change purse dangles from her waist by a fraying ribbon; even from a distance, Eugene can tell that one good tug would send it flying.

"Yeah," he affirms sadly. "Perfect target." Anna starts marching over to them, a purposeful look on her face. "Anna, no, wait—"

Eugene watches in horror as Anna dodges around the people in the crowd, stalking closer to her target while managing to stay relatively out of sight. As he predicted, the change purse comes right off in Anna's hand when she reaches for it; she turns around and gives him a triumphant look, waving it like a trophy. He hates himself, he's an awful influence, what is  _wrong_ with him—

And then he watches as Anna opens the purse up, fills it higher with a few coins from her own pocket, and taps the young mother on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, ma'am? You dropped this."

"Oh! Thank you, m—" the woman chokes with wide eyes when she sees just who's handing her back her money. "Your highness!"

Anna falls into a sloppy curtsy. "That's me."

The woman curtsies back, wrangling her sons to her side. "Boys, bow to the princess."

Anna doesn't seem terribly interested in being bowed to, instead dropping to her knees to see the boys at eye-level. "Hi, what are your names? I'm Anna."

Eugene's sure he'll be able to pick his jaw up off the ground in a minute or two.

* * *

 

"Stop moving!" Rapunzel laughs for probably the fifth time, and Kristoff sighs.

He has no idea why he agreed to this. They'd been having fun, even starting to goof around a little with the music, when apparently the light had hit him  _just right_ and Rapunzel had run inside for her paints, insisting that he not go anywhere. And then she'd come back, but he still couldn't go anywhere.

That was half an hour ago.

"My legs are falling asleep," he says as he repositions his lute as sneakily as he can, trying to get comfortable.

"I saw that."

Huffing, he goes back to the way he was sitting before.

"If it makes you feel better," she adds, "I've never gotten Eugene to sit still for more than ten minutes. So you're actually doing really well."

Maybe it's petty to be cheered up by that, but Kristoff is anyway. "So how long have you guys been married? That wasn't a part of his big story."

"Over seven months! It's actually going to be our eighth monthaversary in two weeks, but Eugene says that monthaversaries aren't things, so…" She shrugs. "I'm gonna get him a pocket knife."

Kristoff does the math in his head. "So you got married before you even knew each other a year?"

"After I got settled down and my parents realized that Eugene was the real deal, it just seemed silly to wait. When you've met the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, you should be able to tell the world about it."

"I guess."

"I know. We probably would have gotten married a month sooner, even, but saying no to him was too fun."

Kristoff blinks. "Wait, what?"

"Saying no was too fun," she repeats. "After the first, I don't know… week? He started asking me to marry him, and I said no, because I knew he was joking and the part of him that wasn't joking was just scared of my dad. But then… he kept asking and asking. And I kept saying no, because  _I_ was scared."

"Of what?"

"Of everything. My whole life changed basically overnight, and I didn't want to ruin it somehow. I'd only just met my parents, and I was worried that if I married Eugene, I'd just sort of use him as an excuse to not get to know them, and I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to hide. And then there was the fact that he was  _so_  not ready to be Prince Consort, and the vows…"

"The vows?" he asks, because he's never been clear on this part. With the trolls, it's as easy as they tried to make it with Anna— _do you take her?_ —but he thinks there's more to it than that. There must be, to scare someone like Rapunzel.

She bites her lip. "You're supposed to say  _til death do us part._ And…"

Kristoff thinks of Anna on the fjord—hand raised, eyes wide open—and understands.

"What made you get over it?" he asks gruffly, more upset than he wants to let on.

"I don't know. Time, I guess. Give it long enough and anyone can get used to anything. Even being happy."

He lets that sink in, trying to absorb her words all the way into his bones. "And after that, you still said no?"

Rapunzel shoots him a wicked grin. "He just made the best  _faces_ every time I turned him down."

Kristoff laughs so hard he breaks his pose, but Rapunzel doesn't seem to mind.

* * *

 

"Okay, okay, walk me through it again, but this time show me," Eugene says, taking a few paces away from Anna before making a  _come at me_ gesture with his hands. "Only watch the nose—it's my best feature."

Anna nods. "Got it."

Eugene stumbles back dramatically. " _Anna?_ " he says in a simpering voice that sounds basically nothing like Hans, but Anna enjoys immensely. " _But she froze your heart._ "

"And then I said  _The only frozen heart around here is yours—_ "

"Great line, by the way."

"—thanks!—and made like I was going to leave," she cheats a shoulder away from him before turning back around, "then I hauled off, and—wham!"

Her fist stops just short of Eugene's face; to his credit, he only winces a little. He opens one eye first, then the other, crossing them comically as he gets a good look at her first. "Hold on." He breaks character, reaching out for her hand with both his own. "You punched him like that?"

"Just like that," she says with a proud smile.

"That's all wrong! Fingers inside, thumb outside,  _always,_ " he says, re-orienting her grip until it looks like he thinks it should. "There. Never make a fist like that again. You're lucky you didn't break your thumb!"

"I guess Hans just has a soft face."

Eugene snorts. "I'll bet. But remember, you're smaller than your average thug or evil prince. Most of the time, flat out punching people isn't gonna do it. You need to use your size to your advantage."

Anna drops and swipes her leg in a vicious kick that knocks Eugene's feet out from under him, sending him crashing to the ground.

"Like that?" she asks, grinning happily.

He groans in pain. "Just like that, Red."

* * *

 

When they return to the castle an hour later—Eugene far more sore than he ever anticipated—they find Rapunzel and Kristoff in the courtyard, painting. Or, well, Rapunzel's painting Kristoff, while Kristoff sits still and talks to her out of the corner of his mouth.

Anna giggles, stopping so they can take the image in, and Eugene pauses behind her, settling his hands on her hips and resting his chin on her shoulder so they can watch the scene unfold.

There's a bit of paint on Rapunzel's arm, rubbed on from the way she's holding her palette. Every once in a while, she scratches at it absently, staining her fingers and then transferring the pigment to everything she touches. She's covered in it. It is a little detail so incredibly  _Rapunzel_  that it stops his breath, and he can feel himself smiling like a doofus into Anna's cheek. He knows that if he were to walk over there and run a hand through her hair, she would smell of tempera and sweat and the light floral scent that's followed her her whole life; knows that if he tried to kiss her, she would let him.

On today of all days, it strikes him just how far he's come, and he wonders for the thousandth time what cosmic balance he tipped that, after all he's done, he could be standing here: at this time, in this place, with her. With all of them.

Kristoff catches sight of them, finally, and breaks into a relieved smile. "Please tell me you're here to rescue me."

"Only with permission," Eugene says, but Anna's already wandering over to take the place of Kristoff's lute in his arms, so… so much for that idea.

Rapunzel starts putting her paints away, blushing lightly when she catches her reflection in the little mirror. "Oh my gosh, I'm a mess. Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"You look fine!" Kristoff insists, but Eugene just smiles.

"Oh, yeah, you're a mess. Covered in paint and grass stains? You'd better hop in the bath and scrub all of that off right now, cuz if you don't wash up this instant I might mistake you for Rapunzel. And we all know how unattractive I find her."

"Me, too!" Anna adds from her spot curled up in Kristoff's lap.

Kristoff pulls her in closer, enjoying the way their bodies fit together. "Me, three," he says quietly into her ear, and she beams at him before sort of tackling him in a hug.

"I missed you today," Anna says into his chest.

He laughs. "It was your idea to spend it apart, feisty pants."

"So? Doesn't mean I didn't miss you." She looks up at him with an expression he can't name, but it definitely involves… eyelashes. In fun ways. "Did you miss me?"

He thinks about it a second before shrugging. "Nah."

" _Kristoff!_ "

* * *

 

Okay, so  _technically_ Anna's not supposed to sneak into the kitchens after dark and get snacks. She doesn't see why not—it's not like it's hurting anybody—but it's been a household rule as long as she can remember. If Gerda or Kai catch her out of bed (she has no idea when they actually sleep, now that she thinks about it) they'll escort her to her room without a second thought.

Luckily, Anna knows a thing or two about sneaking. And if the sneakiest way back to her room just happens to pass by Kristoff's, well… that's hardly her fault, is it?

Of course, she doesn't expect to hear muffled screaming when she passes by, either.

Her first thought is that he's being attacked, which is dumb because if he were being attacked he'd be safe by now because Kristoff's like three people big, but then she remembers his voice through her door, all those weeks ago— _I get them too, you know_.

She barges into his room before she can convince herself not to.

His blankets are in a lumpy pile at the foot of his bed, sheets kicked down to his ankles as he thrashes.

"Kristoff? Kristoff, wake up—"

She rushes to the bed, climbing around his flailing limbs without a second thought. It doesn't take much to actually wake him, just a hand to the shoulder as she says "Kristoff, please _,_ " and his eyes shoot open.

" _Anna,_ " he breathes, drinking her in as he sits up, and then his face crumbles in on itself. "I was—you were—we were on the fjord again, and I couldn't get to you in time, I didn't get to you, you died—"

"It's okay, I'm here now—"

"No, but—"

"—it was just a nightmare, I'm fine—"

"But it happened!" he explodes, and it's like all the air gets sucked out of the room. He scrubs at his face, upset. "Anna, you  _died_ ," he says again, helplessly.

"But I didn't. I'm right here. See?" She takes his hand and lifts it to her chest, palm open. Willing him to take in her warmth, to feel her heartbeat. He's still on the verge of hyperventilating, so she slows the rate of her own breathing, trying to calm him down as he looks at her in fear and wonder. "Oh, Kristoff," she whispers, moved, but there aren't words for this, so she kisses him instead. Once, cautiously. A question.  _Is this what you need from me?_

His kiss in return in desperate and hungry, as if he's trying to convince himself that she's real.  _Please, yes._

She scootches closer to him, getting her legs out from under her so she can wrap them around his waist, sitting on his lap while her hands reach up to run through his hair. One comes to rest at the nape of his neck, the other cups his jaw.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I scared you," she says, knowing he needs to hear it. "I'm here, though. I'm right here. I've got you, and I'm not going anywhere. Okay? You," she kisses his forehead, "are not," the bridge of his nose, "alone," his mouth. "Feel me? I'm right here."

His free hand comes around her back to brace her against him as he presses their foreheads together. "I love you so much." He says it like it's been a secret, which is adorable but kind of hilarious—she didn't need for him to say it to know.

"I know. I love you, too. I love you," she assures him, letting her amusement warm her voice, and then there's no talking for a while as she lets him kiss her back to life, his meaning unspoken between them:  _true love, true love, true love._

Then the hand that had been resting against her heart drifts slightly lower, starts kneading and squeezing, and their kisses take on a new kind of intensity. She sighs and he breathes her in; he touches and she melts against him.

The longer they kiss the less control she has over the cant of her hips as she tries to get closer, then closer still. He groans when her lips leave his to travel down his neck and suck at his pulse point, and suddenly her world spins as he turns them both over without warning, so she's on her back against his pillows.

She feels everything twice as much now that they're laying down.

The hand that had been on her breast finally starts traveling once more, exploring her curves before stopping thoughtfully at the hem of her nightgown. His thumb brushes against her knee at the spot where the fabric ends, and she squirms, ticklish.

"Take it off," she orders, not meaning to whisper but so breathless she can't speak normally.

"Are you—"

"Now. Right now."

It takes a bit of creative weight-shifting to get it up and over her head, but it's not like she needed a reason to press up into him. She thinks distantly that she should probably be nervous at how much trust she's putting in him—she's never been naked like this in front of another person in her life—but she's not afraid at all, not when he's babbling about how beautiful she is, not when he keeps looking at her like she's the most precious thing under the sky. He needs and she can give and she will. She is.

(And like, not gonna lie, she's pretty psyched about the whole thing.)

He kisses his way down her body, pausing every now and then when he finds a place he finds particularly interesting—the skin of her chest just over her heart, the jut of each hip bone each getting unexpected favor from his tongue and his teeth. She keeps tugging at his hair, which she feels kind of bad about, but what he's doing feels so  _good_ and there's nothing else she can do with her hands. And judging by the sounds he's making, he doesn't mind it.

He pauses when she hooks her knees over his shoulders, like that crossed some sort of a line, and looks up at her with earnest eyes. "Hey. Are you sure this is what you want?"

Is he joking? He's gotta be joking. "Kristoff,  _please._ "

Those seem to be the magic words tonight, because suddenly that gorgeous head of hair is between her spread legs, silken strands brushing up against her thighs as he explores. She wants to say something, anything, but she's powerless and captivated by his mouth, barely managing to summon the strength to do so much as fist the cotton of his sheets, gasping. She's going to melt into a puddle. She's going to explode. She's never felt like this, never knew it was even  _possible_ to feel like this. Seconds stretch into minutes as he pulls her along, her hips helplessly taking direction like the moon following the tide, or wait, no, that's backwards, and it's so—she wants to—

"Wait, stop," she squeaks, gruff but curiously high-pitched, and he pulls away from her with such speed that it's almost comical.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I—"

"No, it's not that, it's just…" she bites her lip, unsure how to say what she means. "It's not… fair. For you to do all of the, um. Work."

He's blushing, the red of his face practically glowing in the darkness. Only, no, that's the shine of  _her_  on his lips catching the moonlight, and once she realizes that it's like something snags in her chest and  _pulls,_ and she can't breathe. In a good way.

Kristoff coughs. "I didn't want you to think… I mean. We don't have to— _you_ don't have to—"

"I  _want_ to," she promises. "Here, just, give me some room."

He instantly rocks back onto his haunches, and while her legs feel like jelly, she's still got enough upper body strength to push herself back into a sitting position. Feeling suddenly timid, she places both hands on his chest, enjoying the heat radiating through the soft, worn linen of his pajama shirt. His heart's racing at a hummingbird pace, so she gives him her best reassuring smile.

"Still with me?" she asks, and it's all he can do to swallow and nod.

She leans forward and kisses him again, taking her time. Wanting him to feel as worshipped and adored, as  _safe,_  as he just made her feel. One by one, she undoes the buttons of his top with clumsy fingers, laughing at the way he leans into her touch, the way he eagerly rolls his shoulders to shrug the offending garment off.

Her hands dip further, towards his waistband. "Can I…?"

"Not yet," he mumbles into her lips before easing her back down, pressing her into the mattress. The full weight of him on top of her makes her the best kind of dizzy, and she can  _feel_  him, how hot and hard he is between her legs as their hips seek friction together. The only thing separating them now is his pajama bottoms, and she feels drunk on that sensation of  _almost._

She keeps her eyes tightly closed. It seems almost dangerous, doing that—it's not like she has secret reserves of carnal knowledge to guide her mouth or her hands; she keeps worrying she's gonna poke him in the eye or scratch him or something—but she can't bring herself to open them. She  _needs_  this moment of dark. It's hard to explain, but it's like… getting to experience Kristoff through all of her senses  _but_ sight makes everything seem sharper, clearer, more real. Everything becomes touch and taste and scent and the soft sounds that she can barely hear over the pounding of her own ears. She lets herself enjoy it: learning the dips and curves of his bulky frame, the pattern of hair on his chest, the noises he makes when she touches him.

It makes her ravenous somehow, or thirsty, or  _something_. She doesn't have the vocabulary to describe the way she needs him; all she knows is she wants to memorize him like a book, leave him soft and worn and dog-eared with multiple readings.

She can't stop herself; her hands slip lower again, and he freezes above her when he feels her tentatively cupping him over his PJs. " _Now_ can I…?"

He bites his lip and nods, rolling sideways so that he won't have to support his own weight. Gently, shyly, she undoes his drawstring and slips a hand under his waistband, and then his world goes fuzzy as unfamiliar fingers circle and shift, moving and gripping and  _sliding._ He's never felt a touch like that before—soft, uncallused, sweet. He groans, hips working into her hesitant rhythm.

"Is this… all right?"

" _Ye-essss,_ " he hisses, breath hitching as she changes speed.

(He's actually trembling. She's never seen him like this before, so vulnerable, and it makes her—well, it puts all sorts of filthy thoughts in her head. It makes her want to swallow him whole. Literally, figuratively, any way he'll let her.)

It's kind of clammy and awkward, maneuvering around under the tented fabric of his pants, but at the first insistent tug of her other hand at his waist he gets enough control over himself to help her push the trousers down around his ankles. The freedom to see what she's doing is an overwhelming one, and she kisses him again to distract herself from the heady knowledge of what exactly it is she's holding.

"You have to—if you don't stop I'm gonna—"

She may be new to this, but Anna's learned enough about the birds and the bees to know exactly what he's talking about. And she's not even close to ready for that yet.

She lets go long enough to let him catch his breath, then pushes him onto his back and straddles his thighs. It's… strangely difficult, trying to mimic the way he'd touched her earlier, tracing his (amazing,  _cut_ ) body with her hands. She feels clumsy and inept doing it with her eyes open, but at least his reactions seem to say otherwise. Every moan feels like a little victory, and she laughs in delight when he sighs because she feels… powerful. As an experiment, she changes grip to rake at him lightly with her nails, the barest scratch replacing the soft pads of her fingers, and it looks like ecstasy.

" _Anna,_ " he groans, his thrusting helplessly into the air, and it finally feels like the right time to do something about that. With a fiendish smile she crawls forward, takes him in hand and slides down, easing into the right angle and— _oh._

Okay,  _ow,_ like seriously  _ow,_ it hurts, but  _oh,_ she didn't think it would feel like that.

"…Anna?" he repeats, a question this time, and it occurs to her that this is the first time she's been still since she woke him up. She just—she just needs a second, just a second, and then she can—

He's filling her. Not just in the obvious way, because duh, but every way. It's so much more than sex and bodies, it's  _them,_ it's Kristoff, filling up her empty spaces and opening all of her closed doors. All of a sudden that feeling of power and playfulness rushes out of her as the confident coquette disappears, leaving just Anna in her wake.

She's not scared. She's not sad, either, but tears spring to her eyes anyway because it's so much, all at once.

"Hey, Anna, no, it's okay—" he says, reaching up to cup her face, but the way he curls his abdominals to sit up makes his whole body bow into her, and she gasps, eyes widening.

" _Do that again._ "

It looks like he's about to protest, concern painted across his features, so she sinks down onto him, taking him deeper. His eyes roll back.

"Again," she repeats, but this time, he doesn't stop. He lets her call the cues as they snap together, running his hands up her arms until he's gripping her shoulders and pulling her down into a feverish kiss. From there it doesn't take much for him to roll them over again, but she doesn't mind letting him have that. She's always imagined it this way, anyway.

She can hear herself talking,  _yes_ and  _please_ and  _don't stop_ and his name, always his name, but it all feels very far away. He's moving in her, and all she can see are the colors bursting behind her closed eyes like a kaleidoscope. Every part of her is touching every part of him and it finally feels right, feels like  _enough,_ as the friction between them melts the thing that's been sharp and painful in her chest for years, for forever. The ice in her heart, she thinks fuzzily. No wonder he'd dreamed about it.

When they come, they come together, her nails scratching his back hard enough to leave marks.

It seems much too soon to be over.

They're both panting and sweat-slick, which turns the night air cool around them. Kristoff rolls off of her; side by side, they study the hanging above his bed, the sudden quiet pervasive and overbearing.

He lays rigidly on his back, willing his breathing to even out and his heart rate to slow. Now, in the chilly darkness of his bedroom, reality reasserts itself.  _I've ruined her. I'm a monster. What have I done?_ He stares at the ceiling, trying to ignore the soft sounds of her stretching out beside him as he wrestles with the fact that he's just deflowered the princess and someone's probably going to kill him.

His pants are still tangled around his ankles; he hadn't been thinking clearly enough to get them off. Feeling awkward and guilty, he wordlessly kicks up to get a grip on them, tugging hard to cover himself once more. Next to him, Anna sits up and glances around, presumably for her nightgown. Not finding it in immediate reach—he'd chucked it somewhere by the door—she settles for wrapping herself in his pajama top, leaving it unbuttoned.

They do not make eye contact.

"…Kristoff?" she whispers, her voice cracking with vulnerability. His head snaps to the side, and he finds that she's staring at him, eyes wide. She looks anxious.

Maybe he really  _is_ a monster.

"Anna, I—c'mere," he says, opening his arms, and without a word she climbs into his embrace and settles gratefully against his bare chest. He kisses the crown of her head, furious with himself. "I didn't mean to scare you. Are you… okay? Did I hurt you?"

He can feel her shoulders shaking—bile rises in his throat as he realizes she's crying, he made her  _cry_ —but then she says "Are you kidding me? That was  _awesome!_ " and no, she's laughing. Thank goodness."Sure it stung a bit at first, but I got used to it."

"I'm sorry, I didn't think—"

"Kristoff, stop!" she laughs, hitting him lightly on the chest before sitting up so she can look at him properly."It's okay. Or, I mean.  _I'm_ okay. Are you okay?"

His pajama top is big on her, parted enough to expose the valley between her breasts—and the red marks on her skin slowly darkening there. "I'm great," he says. "I'm really—you're… wow."

Her face splits into a wide grin. "I'm wow, huh? I think I like the sound of that."

"You should. I've never… you were…" He can't think of words.

"Wow?" she suggests, and he gropes about blindly for a pillow before smushing it into her face. She laughs, ducking out of the way, but then turns serious. "And…" she adds slowly, eyes searching his, "no regrets?"

It's a big question, one he can't even begin to answer, but—timing aside, he knows that this was inevitable. And he's done wasting time trying do things with her the commonly accepted way. "Just that I didn't say it sooner."

"Say what?" she asks, and he makes a face at her, but she's not playing coy—she honestly didn't catch his meaning, the dork.

"That I love you."

She smiles sleepily and snuggles into the crook of his arm, looking pleased. "I love you too," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his chest. A thought seems to occur to her, and she looks up at him, eyes suddenly vulnerable again. "I can stay here tonight, right?" she asks, and he smiles.

"As long as you want to," he assures her, squeezing her with the arm she'd wrapped around herself and reaching out with his other hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.

(He thinks he might hear her mumble "Forever, please," against his skin as they both drift off into slumber… but then, it's possible he dreamed it.)

* * *

 

He wakes an hour later because he's cold, and because his left arm is numb. He's cold because he's still half-naked, and his arm is numb because Anna is asleep on top of it, and the miracle of that stops his breath.

Moving slowly, trying not to wake her, he delicately extracts himself from her grip and slides down the bed, searching blindly for the sheets and covers he'd fought his way out of while trapped in his nightmare. His arm starts to get a tingling pins and needles sensation, but he can barely feel his hand at all. He rubs the pads of his fingers with his thumb—they feel like they're too big for his body, and oddly detached.

"Kristoff?" Anna murmurs, eyes still closed. She reaches for him and catches his hand as he flexes it, trying to get his blood to start circulating again.

"Hey," he intones, more than a whisper but less than speech.

She looks at him, drowsy and baffled. "Where're you…?"

"Nowhere; my hand fell asleep. It's not important. Close your eyes."

"C'mere…" she requests, pulling him back to her weakly—which mostly involves bringing his hand to her mouth and kissing his fingers. Her gaze is unfocused and half-lidded, and he wonders if she's even really awake at all.

Eyes softening, he grabs the bedding and drags it up over them both, snuggling up to her and nesting their bodies like spoons. Despite the fact that he feels freezing, she is warm and soft and comfortable in his arms, and it's such a reversal from his fears that he just…

He  _loves_ her.

"You feel good," she mumbles, pushing backwards to cuddle deeper into his chest.

"You, too," he says, grinning into her hair. "Go back to sleep."

He's still smiling when he finally drifts off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! That all was the good news, dear readers. Now here's the bad news: I'm going to take a week-long hiatus in order to binge watch Veronica Mars before the movie. Updates will resume March 21st for the last two (we're in the final stretch!) chapters. I hope leaving you with a smutty, extra-long chapter will tide you over.


	9. Chapter 9

It's different with sunlight streaming through the window.

Or, well, back up. The thing Anna hadn't really considered last night is that Kristoff's room has eastern exposure and he sleeps with the blinds open. And Anna loves nature as much as the next girl, she's always been a fan of sunrises, but she likes to appreciate them on  _her_ terms, you know? She'd rather not be taken surprise by one blinding her after maybe four hours of sleep in an unfamiliar bed.

Which is why she ended up trying to basically bury herself inside Kristoff's chest, which is how she woke Kristoff up, which started the whole kissing thing, which she thinks is starting to turn into something else, and last night she really,  _really_ enjoyed 'something else' and mostly she really enjoys Kristoff, but…

It's different, with sunlight streaming through the window. Or she feels like it is.

Everything that had seemed easy in the darkness of last night's encounter seems hard somehow, now. Last night she'd been confident—last night Kristoff had needed her—but now it's just… she can  _see_ everything.

And be seen in return.

Anna knows she's not a… a classic beauty, or whatever. And in the light of day, she can't stop her brain from pulling overtime in the background, wondering what Kristoff sees; what he thinks. The doubts make her shy and uncertain, so when he moves to slide his shirt from her shoulders she wilts away, grateful for the way it drapes over her chest. "C-can we keep this on? For now?" she asks, and his hands fly back from her as if burned.

"Of course! I—sorry, I wasn't—"

"Hey," she says, leaning in to press her lips against his sweetly, "it's okay. I'm just… don't even worry about it." She grins at him. "I didn't say don't touch."

"Are you sure?"

She reaches out for his hands, placing them back on her chest. "Very sure."

That's the last bit of talking they do for a while, each rediscovering the topography of the other's body, revisiting favorite places. Kristoff's breath is warm against the hollow of her throat when he murmurs, "I wish you didn't… I wish…"

She waits, but he doesn't seem like he's going to finish that sentence on his own. Frowning, she pushes her palms against his chest, easing him away from her. "You wish I didn't what?"

He's bright red, eyes unwilling to meet hers. "It's nothing."

"It's not. If I'm—I don't know, doing something wrong, or—"

"You're not!" he assures her hurriedly. "You're not. I was just thinking that… I, um. I wish you didn't feel like you have to hide from me." He runs a hand up her sleeved arm, stopping at the shoulder so he can adjust the night-rumpled collar, effectively covering her up more. "It's—you're perfect, don't you know that?"

She doesn't, but she's starting to find his belief pretty compelling.

* * *

Rapunzel raises an eyebrow when Anna yawns for the fifth time in two minutes. She's always known Anna to be, well, pretty inexhaustible, but the dark circles under Anna's eyes and the haphazard way she's been shelving books as they redecorate the south wing office paint a clear picture. And she's been yawning like that since breakfast.

"Long night?" she ventures.

Anna turns bright red, and—oh, that's not what Rapunzel had been thinking at  _all._

"Kind of," Anna says quietly. "Kristoff, um. Kept me up."

"You mean like…?" Rapunzel starts, and Anna, if anything, just gets redder. "Oh my gosh, that's amazing!" Rapunzel drops the wallpaper hanging she'd been fighting with and crosses the room before grabbing Anna's hand and leading her over to the sofa. "Or—was it amazing? What was it like?"

Anna entwines their fingers, staring at their hands. "It was amazing, but I just… I've been wondering if…" She finally meets Rapunzel's eyes, but she looks stressed and unsure. "How long did it take for you to stop feeling nervous?"

"Only a few minutes, really," Rapunzel says after a moment of thought. "Eugene was very clear that I was in charge, and that we could stop whenever I wanted, and it just… I was intimidated, I guess, but after a while that didn't seem to matter compared to how much I wanted to be near him."

Anna's smiling a little, now, but she still looks concerned. "Oh no, I mean—Kristoff was the same way, I actually wasn't scared at all—but I mean more… now. After. Is that normal? Why am I nervous  _now?_ "

"I'm probably not the best person to ask about what's normal," Rapunzel points out, but her grin softens the words. "I don't know. Maybe you're making it bigger than it has to be. Eugene did that, too. Like it was this whole… thing. So I mean, Kristoff's probably nervous too, right?"

"But he's not. Or, he wasn't. He was all set to try again this morning but all of a sudden it was like I realized what we were doing and it just felt  _awkward._  You know?" Anna examines Rapunzel's face for a long moment, then heaves out a sigh. "I wish I had freckles like yours."

Rapunzel blinks, because that was quite the non sequitur, even for Anna. "Wait, what?"

"I don't know, I know it's stupid, but when I was sitting on his bed I just kept thinking about how scrawny I am and how it must look for us to be together and I know he loves me, it's not like I think he's lying when he says he thinks I'm beautiful but—that's just it, you know? He  _thinks_ I'm beautiful. What if I'm not? What if he changes his mind? What if—"

"Anna, Anna!" Rapunzel cries, squeezing her hands in an attempt to stem the flow of anxiety pouring out of her. "Stop! Please stop. Where is this coming from? And what on earth does it have to do with my freckles?"

"It's—yours are cute, and normal. You have a smatteringjust around the nose and then they  _stop_ , like they're supposed to. I have a galaxy," Anna complains, shrugging to emphasize the freckles dotting her shoulders.

Rapunzel frowns, letting her eyes fall down the slope of Anna's neck, and—there's nothing to be nervous about, there's really not. But how to make Anna see?

She lets a slow smile light her face. "Do you think we could find constellations?"

* * *

When Eugene walks into the office a half hour later, it's a complete mess. There are books strewn everywhere and wallpaper hanging in loose sheets, and on the floor he finds two giggly princesses manhandling each other. There's ink all over both of them, though only Anna's dress is sloppily-placed and half-open. It's kind of funny to see it from the other side—Rapunzel always used to play with him like a ragdoll, posing him and poking at his scars and investigating the whorl and grain of his stubble. She's never tired of  _people,_ and watching her study Anna almost feels like looking in a mirror.

"And just what are you two up to?" he asks.

"Charting the stars!" Rapunzel informs him, beaming.

… Okay, new one on him. "And how's that working out for you?"

"I almost rhyme!" Anna laughs, "I have bookends. See?" She points to a series of connect-the-dot lines on her left shoulder. "Lepus," she says, tossing him a brilliant smile before pointing to a differently-shaped drawing on the other shoulder, "and Lupus."

"I'm looking for Pyxis on the back of her neck," Rapunzel informs him. "That's the perfect middle between them in the night sky."

Eugene just smiles and takes a seat next to them on the floor, because of course that's what's she's doing. That makes perfect Rapunzel-sense. "Okay, I know rabbit and wolf, but what's a picksit?"

" _Pyxis._ A mariner's compass. It doesn't actually look like much—the constellation, I mean—so that's why I'm having so much trouble. Most of them look a little bit more like pictures; Pyxis is just random stars."

"They're  _all_ random stars," he points out, and she glares at him.

Anna lets the conversation wash over her, feeling warm and cherished and uniquely beautiful.  _A mariner's compass_. That's not a constellation she ever learned about with her tutors; she wonders if Elsa did. She hopes not. She knows herself and her sister well enough to know that the idea of a constellation meant to guide people lost at sea would have completely obsessed them both a few years ago.

It's weird to feel like she's on the other side of that, now.

"… that maybe it's not on the back of her neck," Eugene is saying when she tunes back in. "Maybe it's on her front somewhere. Over her heart." He catches Anna's eye and gives her this look, this—it's the same way Rapunzel looked at her that day she chased after Kristoff into the mountains, melty and compassionate and— _loving._ That would be the word she's been looking for. "May I?"

She nods, and with gentle fingers he pulls down the bodice of her dress a few immodest inches, exposing her décolletage fully for Rapunzel's inspection.

They never do find Pyxis, but it doesn't seem to matter much against the discovery Anna  _does_ make that afternoon—that Rapunzel and Eugene kiss exactly the same way as one another. She doesn't know if Rapunzel learned the easy sensuality from Flynn Rider or if Eugene learned the aggressive eagerness from Rapunzel or neither or both but their mouths, though different shapes, move in synchronous patterns: teasing and insistent and fun.

It's kind of adorable.

(She doesn't try and hide from Kristoff again.)

* * *

Elsa doesn't even look up when someone knocks on her open door frame at half past noon; frankly, she doesn't know why Kai always knocks when he brings her lunch. "Come in," she says, flipping to the next page of the inquest she's looking at.

"Hope you're hungry," the voice says—not Kai, "because they made like a million of these little sandwiches."

"Kristoff!" Elsa says happily, removing her glasses so she can see him properly. "What brings you here?"

"Anna said she and Rapunzel would probably work through lunch today, so I thought we could both use the company."

She grins at their private joke. Neither of them had ever been much for company until recently—a fact that Anna goes out of her way to ignore—but they've managed to turn it into something of a running gag between them. It's… nice.

"And," he adds as he places the tray in front of her on the desk and takes a seat, "there's kind of something I wanted to tell you. Or, ask you."

"Well, it might help if you picked which one, first," she says, taking a sandwich. He takes one too, but he doesn't take a bite. Instead he starts methodically tearing off the crust, corner by corner. And she gets that—needing something to do with your hands. "Kristoff?"

"Anna's important to me," he blurts, blushing furiously.

"She's important to me, too," she says mildly, because she knows he wouldn't be here if it weren't something of consequence. He'll get to the point on his own time.

"And anyway last night I—we—look, I was going to wait until marriage, or at least until I asked her or something, but then it was just… happening, and I didn't want to stop it, and I didn't want to hurt her—not that I ever want to hurt her!—and I just… felt like you should know. That we…" he swallows, looking terrified. "Took a big step. Together."

It is this, more than anything else, that makes her sure of who she is. Because she imagines that anyone who likes men at all would have to fall for a man like Kristoff.

She smiles at him. "I'm happy for you. But just to be clear—you are planning on asking?"

His eyes bug out. "Of course! I mean. Not soon, or anything, but. Yeah." He looks up at her through his bangs. "Do you think she'd say yes?"

Too many answers run through Elsa's head at once, about open doors and snowmen and how Anna's never been one to say no to anyone, or to love, but this isn't about Anna. It's about Kristoff, and feeling chosen.

"Of course she will," she says, and she can tell by his smile that he caught her change in tense.

* * *

Kristoff leaves once they've polished off the last of the sandwiches, but she thinks about his visit for the rest of the day.

By all accounts, she thinks she probably should be… jealous, maybe. Anna's time is a precious commodity these days, and when she sees the way the two of them—the  _four_  of them—interact, the easy intimacy, she always—waits. To feel something, a pull, a twinge, a bitterness on her tongue. It's never there.

Figuring out that she wasn't like most women had been the simple part. She'd charted that part of her isolated adolescence with a sort of detached, academic approach, between lessons and quiet meals with her father and hours alone in her room. She still got to see people—across hallways, out the window, around corners—and her eyes never followed the stable boys with broad shoulders or the footmen with kind eyes and facial hair designed to hide their soft jaws, no matter how much she read about that kind of wanting in books. She liked curves, and perhaps that was reactionary, because ice is hard angles and frozen fractals but women never are, not really.

She'd never had a word for what she is, but then, she's never had words for any of the things she is, other than the ones Anna insists she stop using— _freak, monster._ Maybe they never did apply to her, but she hasn't stopped holding her breath.

But so far she's not jealous, and she's grateful that she's not, because it leaves so much room in her heart for things she's been waiting her whole life for: relief. Understanding. Love.

It's funny how so many little things add up to big things. The way she can say  _I'm going out for the day; Anna, you're in charge. Rapunzel, you're in charge of Anna_ in a teasing voice and get outraged scoffs in response and know that it's okay, it's okay to make fun and it's okay to leave because nothing bad is going to happen in her absence, nothing bad so far has happened in her  _presence_. The way someone always raps on her office door if she doesn't leave her desk under her own power past sundown, and how that person is almost never Anna, because they all think of her, they all worry about her, and she can tell them apart by their knocks, if she's paying attention.

She's never longed for romance the way Anna did; it had seemed beyond her, so outside anything she could dream of she hadn't wasted the time doing it.

But she's been waiting for family for thirteen years, and she supposes there's nothing to be jealous about.

* * *

"We left off at the sword fight, right?" Eugene asks, walking over to the fireplace to grab a poker from the stand. He tosses it into the air with a practiced flick of the wrist, then brandishes it like a saber.

Kristoff flips clumsily through pages, trying to find their place. "Uh, yeah. Yes. Count Ubel. There's barely a page left."

Eugene rolls his shoulders and readies his weapon. "Well?"

Kristoff clears his throat, and starts to read. "Standing over Count Ubel's body, Flynnigan Rider at last felt tri—um. Trim…pf?"

"Oh, triumph."

"That can _not_ be how you spell—"

"It is, trust me. Moving on?"

"It's really distracting when you do that."

"I'm  _helping._ C'mon, man, you're my narrator. I go where you tell me," Eugene encourages, and Kristoff turns back down to the pages, brows scrunched in concentration.

"His quest for revenge finally over, he knew he still had to make it past the guards to complete his escape. Flynnigan leapt from the window onto the lower roof," Kristoff reads, trying to ignore the fact that Eugene has jumped onto the back of the couch, "the bag of gold bal—balenked?"

"Balanced, sss-sound when c meets e, remember?" Eugene wobbles on one foot and then the other as he walks the length of the couch, cat-like. "You know that one; it's on your ledgers." Kristoff nods.

"—balanced on the end of his sword like a rucksack. An arrow hit the stones next to his feet—he'd been spotted! His only hope was to clear the moat before the bowmen could warn the guards at the gate. In his heart, he knew he could not get away with both the money and his life. Abandoning the gold, Flynnigan broke into a run and threw himself from the roof," Eugene springs from the couch, landing in front if Kristoff in time for him to read, "leaving only wet footprints for the guards to find in the moonlight. The end."

"You did it!" Eugene crows, grabbing the book from Kristoff's hands and tossing it across the room over Kristoff's protests, "That's the whole thing! We got through volume two!"

The scratch of Eugene's goatee as it rubs against Kristoff's chin is—strange, but not unpleasant. He even thinks he'll learn to like it.

(The facial hair thing, that is, not the… the kissing thing. He kind of—he likes—yeah.)

* * *

"Do Kai next," Anna requests, voice slurring just enough with sleepiness that Elsa thinks she won't have to make many more snow replicas before her sister conks out for the evening. Still, she waves her hand until a frosty Kai is standing at the foot of her bed, bowing clumsily. Anna laughs, even as Elsa dissolves him away—she never lets them stay too long, these copies. She doesn't know how long it takes for the magic that gave life to Olaf to kick in, and she doesn't want to find out.

They've been doing this for a while now, a night here and there every week or so. Anna thinks of Elsa's powers like a constantly-filling balloon; says things only go wrong when Elsa doesn't let the air out every now and then to alleviate the pressure. It's as good a theory as any, and besides, it's actually fun. She knows Anna still doesn't quite remember it, but they used to do this as kids all the time. It's nice that it doesn't have to hurt anymore.

"Do a Kristoff."

"I already made three Kristoffs."

"What can I say? I like his face." At Elsa's expression, Anna pouts. "Fine, do me."

"No."

"Come on, please? You  _never_ make one of me."

If Anna were to think about it for more than two seconds, she'd probably figure out why Elsa doesn't want to make an ice sculpture of her. She probably already has. But Anna doesn't want to think about it, and Elsa doesn't want to explain, so they both let it go. Most of the time.

"If you made one of me and another Kristoff, we could kiss," Anna grumbles, mock-sullen.

Elsa turns to face Anna fully, painting her face with a wicked grin. "From what I hear, you've done a lot more than kissing lately."

Anna's eyes go wide, and she rolls over until she can bury her face in Elsa's pillows. "He  _told_ you?" she whines, voice muffled by fabric.

That surprises Elsa, honestly. She'd expected gushing enthusiasm with maybe just a hint of embarrassment. Not… this. "You'd rather he hadn't? I thought you'd be happy."

Anna says something unintelligible into the bedding.

"Come again?" Elsa asks.

"I said," Anna mumbles, peeking one eye out, " _I_ was supposed to tell you."

"So why didn't you?"

"I don't know, I was waiting for the right time."

Elsa waves a hand to indicate the fact that, hello, they're alone in her room. "And when was the right time going to be, exactly?"

Anna casts her eyes down. "When you weren't alone."

"Oh, Anna…"

"I know, I know we talked about this, and I don't feel guilty anymore, or greedy, but it still feels… selfish to be this happy, when you're locked in your office working all the time. I didn't want to, I dunno, rub it in your face. Because I am, I'm  _so_ happy, and I just want you to be happy, too."

"But I  _am_."

"You could be happier."

Elsa sighs, and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Maybe I could. But you can't force these things, Anna. What are you going to do—walk up to girls in the marketplace and ask if they'd like to spend some quality time with the Queen?" Anna's face lights up alarmingly fast at that suggestion. "Anna,  _no._ "

"But—"

"No. You know how that plays out. You can't just go out looking for love—if you do, you settle for the first thing you find that looks like it. Love has to find you."

"Look at us," Anna laughs, rolling over and resting her arms behind her head. "Regular love experts. Who woulda thought?"

_Who indeed,_ Elsa thinks when Anna's snoring five minutes later.

* * *

Rapunzel goes absolutely stir-crazy when it rains. Anna would probably find it cute if it didn't break her heart.

She knows Rapunzel hates feeling trapped, which—hey, don't they all?—but she also knows there are layers there that she'll never be able to understand. _She_  was never locked in. Heck, even Elsa was allowed to go out. She chose to less and less as they grew up, but could always go out if she wished, even if only to the courtyard.

Rapunzel didn't feel grass between her toes for  _eighteen years._

Eugene handles it best of all of them, having had the most practice. The way she restlessly roams the halls, curling in on herself—talking more and more to Pascal, and less and less to the rest of them. They walk on eggshells around her, unsure of what she needs, or what might set her off.

It takes two days, but Kristoff breaks first.

"What's the worst thing that could happen?" he asks as he walks towards the entrance hall, where Rapunzel's had her nose pressed against the glass for hours now. Anna follows after him as fast as she can, needing to take about three steps to match each of his long strides.

"She could catch cold, or…"

"Or? I'm listening."

"Or… I don't know." Anna blinks, feeling wrong-footed.  _Don't go out in the rain_ is just one of those household truths, unquestionable and obvious. Like  _don't move logs in the fireplace with your bare hands_ or  _wear shoes if you're visiting the stables._ "Or it could be fine, I guess."

"Exactly. Do you have any idea how many times I've slept out in the rain? Exposure to the elements won't kill her. Keeping her pent up just might."

Well now Anna's just thinking about Kristoff not having anywhere to go at night when the weather got bad, and that's all kinds of upsetting. He outpaces her easily in her distracted state, and she has to run to catch his opening line—

"We're going out."

Rapunzel giggles, but there's a high-pitched, breathy strain to it that belies her casualness. "What, now?"

"Right now."

"But Kristoff—"

"Nope, that's enough," he says, before throwing her over his shoulder and striding out the front door into the deluge. It takes about six seconds for Rapunzel's shrieks of protest to become shrieks of laughter.

Anna watches from inside as they shake out their cabin fever one limb at a time, jumping in puddles and lifting their mouths to the sky, hair plastered to their foreheads. Part of her wants to go out and play along, but most of her is content just to watch. Olaf, however, barrels out and joins them, little trails of steam curling off him as the raindrops hit his flurry. They've never looked so young.

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Eugene asks from behind her, but the way he winks when she turns around gives her a pretty strong impression that he had.

* * *

She's been ending up in Kristoff's bed more nights than not, recently.

It's actually not anything she's doing on purpose—the fact that they always start apart but end together, or the fact that she's always the one seeking him—but there's still a loneliness that clings to the walls of her own bedroom, a feeling like sharing it is forbidden.

But Kristoff doesn't ask, and they're both more than happy to stay the night wherever they can.

She loves the way he waits for her, on days when he's had to go out and cut ice—never too far away, only ever day trips, now, because there's too many people he'd miss if he had to go longer. The way he allows her to undress him, to work through the knots in his muscles and massage away hours of labor. She's developed a pattern, now, has it down to a science: she runs her hands up his bare back, starts kneading his shoulders. Always paying particular attention to the junction of his neck and his spine; his shoulder blades; the peaks of his vertebrae. All places she's kissed, but that never seems nearly as important as this quiet ritual.

He likes picking her up and putting her on things—counters, dressers, the panels between stalls in the barn. No matter how often he does it, she still gets a thrill at the rare feeling of leaning  _down_ to kiss him. He moves her like she weighs nothing at all, fingers splayed and hands sure at her hips.

These are not things they share with Rapunzel and Eugene, not yet.

But she feels like she can taste the change coming in the air, like the scent of ozone before a storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll see you all here next week for the finale--same Bat time, same Bat channel!


	10. Chapter 10

It happens on a Tuesday. (Anna, for the record, has totally  _never_ liked Tuesdays. They're stupid, stupid days.)

The thing is, she'd kind of managed to convince herself that this day would never come. Everything's been so perfect, and she probably should have realized that it couldn't last, but… she's always been an optimist at heart.

Only it's hard to see the bright side when one of the porters from the harbor strolls into the banquet hall in the middle of lunch to tell them that the repairs on  _The Waking Sky_ will be completed within a week.

"The waking…?" she ventures, knowing that she knows that name, wishing that she didn't, but Rapunzel's already smiling at her sadly.

"The ship, Anna. My ship."

Anna doesn't have much of an appetite, after that.

* * *

She wishes she could say they didn't fight about it, that she accepted reality with maturity and grace, but, well.

"Just because the ship is ready doesn't mean you have to leave. People stay places they're not stuck in all the time."

"Anna," Elsa reprimands sharply, but it's too late, the words have been said.

"You know we can't do that. It's been months. I have responsibilities. I—I miss my parents," Rapunzel admits. And Anna knows what it costs her to say that, to even think it; knows that if her own parents were waiting for her somewhere, she couldn't stay in her happiness bubble, either. But it still stings, not to feel chosen.

"Excuse me," Anna says woodenly, standing up from the table and walking away.

There is no feeling of victory when Kristoff chases after her.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Elsa says immediately, and it's an uncomfortable feeling—having to apologize for Anna. She doesn't like it. Eugene is glaring into his bowl of soup like it offended him.

"Don't be," Rapunzel mumbles, pushing salad listlessly around her plate. "I get it."

Elsa's heart breaks for them. "She'll come around."

"Why should she? We can't stop this from happening. We  _can't_ stay. It's not like I'm going to stop being upset about it, either."

"But she loves you guys. I know her. Give her a few hours and she'll come running back like it never hurt. That's—it's what she does." Her lips pull; a nervous tick. "I don't blame you for being sad at having to leave her behind."

"Oh, for— _Elsa!_ " Rapunzel protests, voice thick with emotion, and Elsa jumps at the unexpected outburst. She's still a novice when it comes to decoding these things, so she turns to Eugene for a translation.

With visible effort, he twists his mouth into a smile. "Anna's not exactly the only one we're upset at leaving behind."

Her mouth falls open. She's thought a lot, recently, about how much she's going to miss them. But she's a little ashamed now that it had never occurred to her that they might miss her, too.

"I could always order you to stay," she offers weakly. She's only half-joking.

Rapunzel's smile is only a shadow of its usual brightness. "We might let you."

* * *

"I'm awful," Anna mumbles into Kristoff's shirt.

"You're not."

"I  _am._ Why can't I just be happy for them? Why can't I just be happy with  _you?_ I don't—you must hate me."

"Anna!" Kristoff scolds, before palming her jaw with both hands to force her to look at him. "I'm going to miss them, too. This is me agreeing with you, okay?"

The kindness in his eyes is almost too much for her to bear. "I should be out there with them, enjoying it while I can. Not—throwing a tantrum like a toddler."

"Okay. So why are we in here?"

It's everything. The way he's looking at her, the pads of his fingers on her cheeks, his use of 'we,' the gentle question. He's so different from the gruff mountain man she'd met—kinder, sweeter, more patient—and she can see their fingerprints all over him. All over both of them.

"I just thought I'd be included," she murmurs, which doesn't actually answer his question. "When they left. I thought we'd all… pick a day together, or something. We could throw a party. But instead it's just  _happening,_ and I don't have any say in it, and I'm just… I don't like being shut out."

"I know," he says softly, but he's still searching her face, like he knows she's holding something back. "Anna… is this about the boat thing?"

Nuts. "What boat thing?"

He raises an eyebrow. "I know how your parents died, Anna. Everyone does. It's—if you're worried just  _tell_ them."

"Me, worry? Please."

"Anna—"

"I just don't want them to go, that's all."

He lets it go. He even stays with her all afternoon, but his stomach won't hear it when she decides to skip dinner. To his credit, he brings her a plate when he comes back to say goodnight.

"Do you want to come back to my room?" he asks, meeting her at the doorway.

She sighs. "No, I just—it's been a long day, I just want to sleep. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You know where to find me if you change your mind," Kristoff says, kissing her temple before leaving.

* * *

A half hour of fitful tossing and turning brings her to the bedroom door in her robe and slippers. She knocks twice, decisively, before she can change her mind.

"I'm sorry about earlier. Can I spend the night?" she blurts the second she hears squeaking hinges.

Rapunzel practically trips over herself trying to stand aside to let her in. "Oh, gosh, yes."

For the first time since lunch, Anna feels like she can breathe.

Eugene is on the bed flipping through a book, but Anna's kind of sidetracked by the fact that he's shirtless. It takes a second for her to be able to take in anything beyond the ropy scar on his flank— _it wasn't a choice_ —but then her eyes adjust, and whoa. His chest is relatively smooth, but a trail of dark hair leads down from his belly button to… points unknown… and Anna swallows thickly, suddenly feeling like she didn't think this through. (And she knows every inch of Kristoff's body by now, the curves of his muscles, the bulk of his oversized frame, but the unfamiliar V of Eugene's wiry, tapered waist gets her mouth watering.)

"'Bout time you showed up," he says, putting the book aside, and she hangs her head.

"I'm sorry," Anna says again, because it bears repeating. "I've been a selfish brat all day, and that wasn't fair to you, especially when we only have a few days left, and when you think about it that's probably only like two hundred hours or something—I mean, I haven't counted, but something like that—and I just. Shouldn't have wasted them."

"Don't worry about it," Rapunzel insists, leading her towards the bed. "Just… c'mere, okay?"

It's clear she wants Anna in the middle, which—Anna's not sure if that's a great idea—but Eugene's already putting his book on the bedside table and lifting up the covers for her, and, okay, this is happening.

Rapunzel wraps her arm around Anna's side, seeking her hand. Anna looks down at their interlacing digits, feels the cool pressure of Rapunzel's wedding ring against her fingers, and her heart rends itself in two as she finds herself both dizzily smitten and choking on envy. What would it be like, she wonders, to feel that secure all the time? To  _have_ someone unquestionably; to be able to communicate only with a look, as she's seen Rapunzel and Eugene do a thousand times before?

Correction: as they're doing right now, over her head.

"You know that if Corona and Arendelle shared a border, we'd probably have just consolidated kingdoms by now, right?" Rapunzel finally jokes, nudging Anna's side.

She sighs. "Yeah, but if we shared a border you would never have stayed here, because you wouldn't have needed to wait on the ship."

"Cheery," Eugene mutters, but Anna ignores him.

"It's just. It's not fair," she continues. "What if I never see you again?"

"That's not going to happen. I'd never let it," Rapunzel says.

Anna pulls her hand from Rapunzel's grip. "We don't always get a vote."

"It's just a little boat ride, Anna, we could be back and forth all the time if—"

"My parents  _died_ on a little boat ride! Using the same routes you used to get here. I'm sure; I checked the atlas ages ago."

(She likes it when things are called what they are, when they define themselves—like how plants come up in spring and come down in fall—but that one had felt particularly apt. Atlas: the weight the world on her shoulders.  _Pyxis,_ the mariner's compass. It should be over her heart, but it's not there.)

"I—" Rapunzel's mouth works, and Anna's never seen her speechless before. "I'm so sorry, I didn't—I wasn't thinking."

"I know you're not, and that's what scares me. Why am I the only one taking it seriously? This—it's not just some nothing trip, it's—you could—"

"Please don't be mad," Rapunzel interrupts, eyes bright, and Anna's never seen until this moment the way Rapunzel folds in on herself when she thinks people are cross with her. It only makes sense, though, and the shocking familiarity of it—she's seen that look on Elsa's face a thousand times—is enough to jolt Anna out of her freakout.

"I'm not," Anna says. But— _cross,_ that's one too, now that she thinks about it. The way things meet, and clash, and where you hang your burdens after. Autological, that's the word. A self-contained metaphor. Anna's getting better at them. "I just—I really don't want to say goodbye to you."

Rapunzel kisses her then, desperate, knocking her backwards. But Eugene is warm and solid at her back, holding them both up. It takes her a second to realize he's talking in her ear.

"…doesn't mean it's bad for everyone. Try and see it from the other side: Rapunzel and I saw the floating lights on a boat, her eighteenth birthday. We had our first almost-kiss on a boat. They're important. Romantic."

Anna can't help but smile at the way Rapunzel snorts into their kiss. "Almost-kisses aren't things, Eugene."

"Sure they are! Back me up, Red. Are almost-kisses things?"

_Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who—_

"Totally a thing," she confirms, because Eugene's lips are at the back of her neck and Rapunzel's lips are on hers and it's an embarrassment of riches, really. The memory is only that, now: a memory. They're touching her, so it can't.

— _loved you._

Recovery. That's one.

* * *

The girls have only been asleep a few minutes when there's a knock at the door, and Eugene chuckles under his breath at the predictability of these people. (And, okay, the fact that he can now bank on weird polyamorous encounters as "predictable" says a lot of pretty amazing things about his life.) Bookmarking his page yet again, he swings himself out of bed.

When he opens the door, he finds Kristoff— _shocker—_ on the other side, twisting his hands nervously.

Eugene smirks. "C'mon in, but be quiet; the girls are already out." He waits for Kristoff to enter, then closes the door behind him. "Let me guess: you tried Anna's room first cuz you wanted to check on her, but she wasn't there?"

"Huh?" Kristoff says, apparently distracted at the way the girls are curled around each other in slumber. He shakes his head to clear it. "Uh, no, I—I wasn't looking for Anna. Not that I'm not happy to see her, but I was… I wanted to come here. For me."

Something in the back of Eugene's throat just  _drops_  into the center of his chest—a scratchy, demanding sort of heat—and before he can tell himself not to he grabs Kristoff by the lapels and pulls him in for a searing kiss.

Kristoff looks dazed when he draws back. "You're not wearing a shirt," he notes distantly.

"No, I am not," Eugene confirms. "You are, I notice. What do you say we do something about that?"

* * *

Rapunzel wakes to the feeling of fingers pushing slowly through her hair, and snuggles deeper into the warmth she finds herself pillowed against. She can hear snoring, which automatically rules out Anna as the one awake and moving. "Eugene? What time s'it?" she mumbles fuzzily, unable to decide if she wants to drift off again or not.

"Late. Well, early. Go back to sleep," he tells her, but—not Eugene.

She frowns. "Kristoff?"

"Yeah," he says, the petting motion halting for a moment before resuming. "I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

She has questions, but they're far away and she's  _so_  comfy, and  _so_  sleepy, and Kristoff's fingers are still in her hair, massaging against her scalp, and she really can't bring herself to swim against the tide.

"M'glad you're here," she tells his chest as she burrows closer.

She can feel his smile when he presses his mouth to the crown of her head. "Me, too."

* * *

Starting that morning, everything just… accelerates. Like they're trying to fit months of relationship time into the few short days they have left. It doesn't help that now Rapunzel and Eugene have to spend hours in Elsa's office, working on the kinds of treaties that would justify the length of their stay to the rest of the world. And Anna knows that that's important, but—what used to be long, leisurely afternoons spent in each other's company become stolen moments, heady and hormonal.

She and Rapunzel were supposed to use today's rare afternoon off to put the finishing touches on—Anna doesn't know, a study or an office or one of those rooms upstairs, it's not important—but instead, they'd gone into Anna's room for some quality time together.

It's eerie, how similar the whole thing is to the dreams Anna used to have. (Still has. Whatever.)

Rapunzel grins, lips and tongue trailing down her jaw and then— _holyyyy—_ tracing that one sweet spot on her neck, just behind her ear. Anna suspects there's probably a freckle there, like a little  _Hi, kiss me!_  sign because Kristoff found the spot easily, too, but it's not like she can see it in the mirror and  _oh,_ that feels good. What was she thinking about again? Anna shifts her hips without thought, seeking pressure.

"Anna—"

"I  _want_ you," she keens, and Rapunzel whips backward and away from her so fast even Anna gets whiplash.

They're both very aware that it's the first time she's ever said that.

"Um," Rapunzel says, staring at her, and they're both bright red, panting hard. "Yeah?"

Anna laughs breathlessly, because she's supposed to be the ineloquent one. "Yeah."

"Because…" Rapunzel looks down, and starts playing with a loose thread on Anna's comforter. "I want that, too," she admits quietly. "I want to make you feel good."

Anna's been wooed by less.

(Rapunzel's thin, nimble fingers feel nothing like Kristoff's, but they bring Anna to climax just as easily.)

* * *

It doesn't take long for the idea to gel in Anna's head, after that. It does surprise her, a little, how quickly everyone else agrees to it—somewhere in the back of her mind, she's still getting used to the fact that nowadays she tends to get the things she wants. And when she thinks about the time that first occurred to her, in the library with Kristoff when she realized she'd have to start planning activities that could entertain more than one person, it just… feels like forever ago. Even the idea of Kristoff being that foreign to her, now, is anathema.

She wonders if this is what growing up feels like.

But then, anyone who's about to have sex with three other people at once should probably feel pretty grown up first, right?

* * *

They decide—well, Anna decides—that Anna's bedroom is the place to do it. Because her bed is biggest, and she wants the memories. Kristoff shoots her some kind of look when she says that, but Eugene's made it a point not to make that stuff his business. So they'd all had a hearty meal, and opened a bottle of wine with dinner for once, and now…

Now they're all looking at him with varying expressions of intimidation and nervousness, and what, he's the ringleader, now? That's not fair. Sure, Flynn Rider was no stranger to threesomes, back in his day, but a foursome with another guy was never exactly on the table. And  _Eugene Fitzherbert_  has only ever been with one woman in his life, carnally speaking.

Bless his soul, he's practically choreographing a bed full of virgins. And it's a good thing they elected to go with Anna's bed, because Kristoff is almost Stabbington-sized, and will take up about half of it on his own. (And now Eugene's head is filled with all sorts of terrible images, and he really hates himself sometimes.)

Although, that brings up a good question.

"You two have done this with each other, right?" he asks, turning to Kristoff and Anna.

Kristoff turns bright red, sputtering in indignation. "Wha— _yes._ "

"Okay, okay, just asking. A man's gotta know what he's dealing with, here."

"The only people here. who haven't done this together are you and Kristoff, Eugene," Rapunzel says. Her nose crinkles adorably. "Well, and me and Kristoff. Unless there's something you're not telling us."

Anna gasps theatrically. "The ice harvesting trip!" she cries, pointing a finger at Kristoff. "J'accuse!"

And okay, Anna is awesome with a few drinks in her. Even if she is implicating him in some big gay tryst. (Because, see, one happened, only that was his  _wife._ )

"Nothing happened on the ice harvesting trip," Kristoff says through gritted teeth, and that's a party foul; everyone's meant to be having fun.

"Okay, boundaries," Eugene says, taking a seat on the floor partly because he thinks they all look silly standing there, but mostly because he thinks this could be a while. "That's a good place to start. What's off limits?"

"I don't want anyone touching me immediately below the belt but Anna," Kristoff says, still pouting even as he plops down on the carpet.

"Awwwh!" Anna says, sitting in his lap. "You're the best."

Kristoff blushes.

"What about you, Red?"

"Oh! Um." Anna bites her lip. "I… can't think of anything I wouldn't at least want to, y'know. Try. If that's okay?" she asks, turning to look up at Kristoff.

"You don't need my permission," he mumbles, flustered, and she brings a hand up to his cheek.

"Of course I do."

He smiles at her. "We're good, Anna." He turns to Eugene. "What about you?"

"Ah, me'n Rapunzel are married, we're up for anything. Isn't that right—dear—?" he trails off, losing his train of thought when he looks to Rapunzel for confirmation and instead finds her grinning down at them from above, naked on the bed.

"You guys were taking too long," she says.

Well okay then.

From there things kind of start to blur in a haze of hasty disrobing and laughter and jockeying for position; the second they're all on the bed Anna basically shoves Kristoff at Rapunzel. "Kiss," she orders. "I've never seen you kiss."

"I—okay, uh," Kristoff stutters, unsure where to put his hands until he settles them gingerly at Rapunzel's waist, clearly trying not to stare at or touch her breasts. The kiss, however, is earnest enough, and Eugene finds himself enjoying the way Anna's pupils dilate as she watches them.

He trails a hand along her thigh, leans in close. "Jealous?" he asks, and while he doesn't pull out any of his old tricks very often, he can tell by the flush working its way across her chest and up her throat that his seductive purr is still working for him. Even if no one appreciates his smolder anymore, the jerks.

"Impatient," she clarifies, voice both hoarse and dreamily distant. He doesn't think she's blinked since the others started kissing. She shifts, restless, and with a single kiss to her shoulder Eugene moves his hand again, more out of curiosity than out of a real intent to start something. But—yeah,  _wow_ she's already wet.

"Well, ladies first," he says, shifting around and lowering her down onto the bed. He reaches blindly for Rapunzel's hand. "Hey, a little help here?"

Anna groans, dizzy with want—or maybe just dizzy, because all of a sudden she's on her back and hey, when did Kristoff and Rapunzel stop kissing?

"I was enjoying that," she complains, barely recognizing the rasp of her own voice, and Eugene winks at her.

"Trust me, you'll enjoy this more."

And then Rapunzel and Eugene are at her shoulders—Lepus and Lupus, licking at long-erased ink lines between her freckles—and then lower, until there's a mouth on each of her nipples and  _suction_ and her hips are canting helplessly off the bed as she chokes on pleasure.

"Breathe, Anna," Kristoff reminds her gently from the foot of the bed, and it's that—the tenderness in his voice, even as he's teasing her—that's sexiest of all.

" _You_ breathe," she manages to gasp at him, but then his mouth is on her too and she's wrapping her legs around his neck just to feel like she's not going to float off the bed because her entire world has been reduced to mouths and tongues and friction and pressure.

She doesn't know what to do with her hands. Instinct says to hold Kristoff where he is by any means necessary, but Rapunzel and Eugene's heads are in the way, she'd punch them in the face. Rude. The safest option is probably fisting the sheets, but that's dumb, look at her company; why would she want to get her hands on anything else? She decides to poll the audience:

"Is—can—?"

She swears there were going to be more words there, only Kristoff had taken the opportunity to enter her with a single digit as he worked his tongue against her clit, and coherency didn't really stand a chance. Her half-formed question had at least managed to get Rapunzel's attention, and the other girl abandons her post at Anna's breast momentarily, freeing up her mouth.

"What is it?" Rapunzel asks, propping herself up on one elbow and reaching up to brush Anna's sweaty bangs back from her forehead. "What do you want?"

Anna moans at the gesture—or is it at the way Eugene had instantly taken up Rapunzel's slack by replacing her mouth with his own pinching, kneading fingers? "I—wanna touch you," she manages to grit out.

Rapunzel's smile seems to say  _Is that all?_ "So touch me."

"M'not a lefty," Anna whines, which—sex is making her stupid, what on earth was that—but Eugene, at her right, just grins into her, then uses the opportunity to scrape at her with his teeth.

"So touch  _me,_ " he says, and then her toes are curling because Kristoff's added another finger and she can't tell if they're competing with each other or just trying to kill her but either way it's working. The three of them together are relentless, and in no time at all Anna feels like she's on a precipice looking downward, like she's close to the edge of something awesome. The rhythm of her rocking hips starts to get erratic.

"I—I'm g—"

"That's okay," Rapunzel murmurs, nuzzling the shell of her ear. "Relax. Just let it happen. We've got time."

Which,  _boom,_ instant buzzkill. Because like, that's so far from the truth Anna can't even—that's literally the opposite of what's happening here. They're out of time. It's only tonight. And she's going to make it last.

"Not yet, get off, I'm not ready," she huffs stubbornly, and hey, independent clauses! Go her. Granted, the lower half of her body doesn't seem to have gotten the  _buzzkill_ message yet, still jerking frantically at Kristoff's every move, but at least her brain's caught up.

"Well if you're sure…" Eugene shrugs, and then he's gone, body no longer pressed against hers, and after a beat of hesitance Rapunzel's gone as well, and no, that was a mistake, she's changed her mind—

"No wait no don't stop it's okay I lied I'm okay come back come back come back," she babbles, and she can hear them chuckling at her, but she doesn't even care. They can laugh all they want. Because Rapunzel's lips now are sipping at the sweet spot behind her ear, and Eugene's hands are on her breasts and Kristoff's between her legs and Anna's pretty sure she's the one winning, here.

Her orgasm, however, now seems frustratingly just out of reach, and like, way to outsmart yourself there, Anna. Nice one.

"I need—" she pants, then finds herself unable to finish the thought. ( _At least_ , she consoles herself,  _it's still a full sentence_.)

"What?" Eugene prompts, skimming his palm over the soft skin of her stomach.

"It—I—"

"I hope you guys are having fun up there," Kristoff grumps. "My jaw is cramping up."

" _Breathe,_ Kristoff," Anna snarks back, only that was it, the missing ingredient, she'd been missing Kristoff's voice but he's been here the whole time, and suddenly all she can feel is his  _other_ hand, the one gripping her thigh, holding her steady.

Her spine stiffens, she's  _so close_ —

"It's alright," Rapunzel says, over and over, "it's alright," and Anna can't even figure out what that's supposed to mean until Eugene nips at her other ear and agrees, "C'mon, Anna, come for us."

She's not sure if it's the  _Anna_ or the  _us_ that gets her, but she's got. Her back arches as she cries out her release, every muscle seizing at once until she falls back, body wracked with tremors. Rapunzel and Eugene sit up to give her space, and with effort she manages to untangle her boneless legs from Kristoff's neck.

"Gyah," she repeats to the ceiling.

"That didn't sound like 'Kristoff,'" he jokes, crawling his way up her body before bracing himself above her on strong arms. She lets herself languish under him, eyes drinking in the way the muscles of his shoulders ripple. He blinks as he notices her trembling, worry draining the confidence and lust from his features. "Are you cold?"

"Opposite of that," she breathes, reaching up to touch his chest. "And your name—names—have too many syllables.  _You,_ " Anna says, bending back to poke Rapunzel on the nose, "being the worst."

Rapunzel just laughs and turns to her husband. "Oh my gosh, is  _that_ why you decided to be Flynn instead of Flynnigan?"

"No comment. How you doin' there, Red?"

"I'm spent," Anna jokes, rolling over and trying to curl up. "You guys do whatever you want; I'm exhausted. Roll me over when it's my turn again."

"If you insist," Rapunzel says, and then Anna can feel her small hand pressing between her shoulder blades. Anna lets out an  _oof_ as Rapunzel leans most of her body weight on her, apparently trying to get to Kristoff; she can hear the wet sounds of their kiss.

"Hey, what're you doing up there?" she asks, because she can't twist her neck around far enough to see them. She really didn't think this through.

"Wanted to taste you," Rapunzel groans into Kristoff's lips.

"Wha—? Hey, that's—!" Anna protests, but her attempt to roll back over makes Rapunzel's arm buckle. She and Kristoff overbalance, tipping forward they both collapse on top of Anna, Rapunzel's face smushed ungracefully against the small of Anna's back as Kristoff crushes them both.

"Sorry! Sorry," Kristoff mumbles, scrambling to get his weight off of them, but Anna just laughs, caressing the only part of Rapunzel she can easily reach—her ankle.

"There, see? Now you're much closer to the source."

"Uh huh," Rapunzel chuckles, but then she's gently kissing the two divots that frame Anna's spine just above the curve of her backside, and Anna hisses at the sensation.

"Okay okay okay enough," she gibbers, slithering out from the tangle of bodies she's caught in because she's still over-stimulated and sensitive. She pulls herself up against the pillows at the headboard, next to Eugene. He's been watching the whole thing with an amused smirk, and when she looks down, she sees that he has himself in hand, stroking lazily. She swallows.

Kristoff pulls himself up until he's sitting, and absent-mindedly reaches for Anna's hand, entwining their fingers. "So, uh, now what?" he asks. Anna notes that his eyes, too, are following the movement of Eugene's hand.

"Well, that depends," Eugene says. "What do you want?"

"I want to watch," Kristoff says immediately, seeming to surprise even himself. He looks between Rapunzel and Eugene. "While you…"

"Looking for tips?" Eugene teases.

Kristoff turns bright red. "Shut up."

"Hey, no," Eugene says, looking contrite, "I didn't—of course. That's—"

Rapunzel crawls on top of him and kisses him before he can incriminate himself any further somehow. The way they kiss each other—slow, relaxed, like there's no rush and they might as well stop and enjoy themselves for a minute—is hypnotic to watch. Kristoff wonders if he kisses Anna like that; if they'll ever look half so carelessly perfect together.

"Do you want help with that?" Anna whispers then into his ear, as if he summoned her. He shivers at the feeling of her lips as they trail down his neck, and he is achingly, painfully hard.

Oh, wait. That was a question. "What?"

She reaches for him where he needs her most. "I could take care of this for you," she clarifies. "If you want me to."

"I always want you," he mumbles. Across the bed, Rapunzel whimpers as Eugene slips inside her. She breathes in tiny, choking gasps that whisper around his name; it's intoxicating.

"Hold on," Kristoff says, pushing Anna's hand away and grabbing her instead by her hips, lifting her into his lap. "You should be able to see this."

It's not an angle they've ever tried before—him entering her from behind while trying to stay seated—and it's awkward; she has to kind of be up on her knees in order to get the range of movement he needs. But it's worth it for the view.

They get lost in each other; Kristoff honestly loses count at the number of times they all trade places, trade partners. For a few memorable minutes he and Eugene are in Anna at the same time while her head rests in Rapunzel's lap and the other girl whispers soothing nothings at her, stroking her cheeks. Kristoff had wanted to stop at first—it looked like it was hurting her as she strained to take them both—but Anna had insisted, begged, and he's never been good at saying no to her. None of them, however, had lasted long in that position.

He learns that Rapunzel tastes different than Anna does, in ways he doesn't have the palette or experience to describe. He's not quite brave enough to try Eugene, but when Kristoff spills out onto his own stomach after learning what it's like to have six hands on him at once, he doesn't stop Eugene from swiping a finger through the sticky mess and having a taste. He has to retreat to the bathroom after that, embarrassed, wanting to clean himself up away from their gazes, but it is Rapunzel who follows him, Rapunzel who coaxes him back to the bed.

He'd expected to find Anna and Eugene perfectly distracted in his absence, but instead they'd both been waiting at the foot of the bed, not even touching each other, eyes wide. Like puppies waiting for their person to come home.

Later, though, he can't get them to  _stop_  touching each other—Anna spends upwards of ten obsessive minutes laving at Eugene's knife scar with her tongue, loving on him, even as her fingers tangled with Rapunzel's own. And that's something Kristoff understands, something they've talked about when she spends hours learning the dips and crevices that come with a body that's been harvesting ice for ten years: that sometimes she misses the streak of white in her hair, the physical evidence of what she'd been through. Elsa's ice had left no scar on the surface, but it didn't always feel like that on the inside, she'd said. Anna wanted to carry it. She was proud of it. He gets that.

They finally stop when the light coming through the window starts to turn that soft, gray yellow of pre-dawn, all of them delirious with exhaustion and high on each other.

"So," Anna laughs, sweaty and sated as the others settle down for sleep around her. "Who wants to build a snowman?"

They groan.

* * *

The treaty between Arendelle and Corona, foreign ministers and politicians from neighboring lands will note later, wasn't exactly unprecedented in its fairness or generosity. No, there were plenty of examples from the past where two lands had given of their riches in such a clearly equitable manner, pandering to each other's strengths and needs.

It's just that all of  _those_  treaties were reached between royal families getting united by marriage.

But that's later.

Somehow word spreads around the kingdom that Rapunzel and Eugene that today is the day of  _The Waking Sky_ 's departure, and by the time the five of them (well, six counting Pascal) make it to the docks there's a large crowd of onlookers watching from the pier.

Anna really hadn't wanted an audience for this, but had flat-out rejected the suggestion that they just say their goodbyes at the castle. She's not going to give up a single moment of their company, and she's not going to stop waving until their ship is a speck on the horizon. She owes them that. She wants that. Nothing less.

"Okay, me first," Elsa says, trying to sound selfish, but Anna sees right through her. She's letting Anna go last, protecting her like always. "Rapunzel, I—"

Rapunzel falls into Elsa, arms wrapping around her neck, cutting off her thought.

"I told Anna once I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister," she confesses to Elsa's clavicle. She hangs on even tighter. "Now I know."

Elsa doesn't seem to have a response to that, so she just lets Rapunzel hang off her, burying her nose in Rapunzel's short hair.

When she pulls away, Anna has to strain to hear her quiet question—"You're coming back, right?"

"Nothing could keep me away," Rapunzel promises, and steps back.

"Oh, my turn? Here, hold the frog," Eugene says, passing Pascal to Kristoff so he can hug Elsa properly. Eugene's hugs, Anna knows, are rare but perfect—he wraps his arms all the way around, to the opposite shoulder. Like he's trying to hold you together. "Hey, Elsa."

"Yes?" she sniffs.

"You're good at this," he says, and before she can ask what  _this_ is he's stolen the crown off the top of her head, spinning it on his finger.

"Eugene!" she laughs, and with an exaggerated shrug he tosses the tiara back at her.

"Good riddance," Elsa grumbles, but she's smiling, and then she's walking back up to the pier. Anna thinks she's going to go wait in the carriage, but then—no, she starts talking to one of the women in the crowd, a young mother. Providing a distraction, Anna realizes.

Kristoff clears his throat. "Alright, um…"

Eugene gives Kristoff a manly clap on the back, Kristoff returns it, and that's it, that's goodbye for them. Anna wonders how they do it. But then Kristoff's hands are at Rapunzel's hips and he's lifting her, spinning her high in the air, and she's laughing, and Anna aches because she knows what that feels like on both sides: to have your feet firmly on the ground until he lifts you like it's nothing, to want to do anything to hear that laugh.

"Thank you," Kristoff says when he puts her down, and her nose wrinkles.

"For what?"

"I—" Kristoff starts, but then frowns, and Anna can see the conflict play out on his face as he tries to choose the right words. He's never been a big speech guy, or a confessing-feelings guy. "The love," he finally says.

"You're welcome," she says, and then she stands on her tiptoes to kiss his chin.

And then she and Eugene turn to Anna, and it's her turn.

"I can't do it, I can't say goodbye to both of you at once," Anna moans.

Eugene smiles his encouraging smile, the same one he gave Elsa on the night they all met.  _I'm not freaking out; are you freaking out?_ "Okay then, me first," he says, before sweeping her into a crushing hug.

"What, no kiss on the cheek?" she brave-faces.

Smirking at her, he leans in and kisses her just at the corner of her mouth. "Be good, Red," he says when he lets her go, and he walks up the gangplank before she can get in a response.

Rapunzel's hands are cradled nervously at her waist, like she knows she wouldn't be able to control herself if she tried to do what Eugene had.

Anna bites her lip; she can feel her eyes watering. "I'll write you."

"I know you will."

"And—and we're going to see each other all the time. I'll make sure of it. I'm coming to visit, okay? Within six months, I'll be coming to visit."

"Anna, you hate sailing," Rapunzel points out, trying to mask the breathiness of her upset with a laugh.

"So?" Anna counters with a shoddily-concealed sob of her own. "I'll make it work. We're going to see each other. And then you'll have to come back when Kristoff and I get married—"

"When we what?" Kristoff yelps, and Pascal crawls up onto his face in an attempt to cover his mouth.

"—and just. All the time. Right?"

"Right. You won't even notice I'm gone," Rapunzel vows.

Anna can't quite keep the watery smile on her face at that. "No, I will. I always do."

She's not sure who takes the first step, but suddenly they're hugging each other tight, fingers splayed wide across each other's backs. "Hang in there, Joan," Rapunzel whispers in her ear, and it's too much. The tears start to fall.

They stand there like that longer than they probably should, considering the audience of villagers, but she can't quite bring herself to let go.

"Your Highness," one of the porters finally says with a practiced, delicate cough. "We're waiting on you."

Reluctantly, Rapunzel pulls away, then wipes her tear-runny nose with her wrist in a distinctly un-princesslike manner. "Pascal, please," Rapunzel requests, holding out her hand, and Kristoff deposits the chameleon into her grasp before bending down to kiss her on the forehead one last time.

"Okay," she says, taking a deep breath. "Okay. Bye. For now," she says, taking one step backwards up the gangplank, and then another.

"Bye for now," Anna echoes. She keeps waiting for Rapunzel to turn around and Rapunzel keeps not doing it, until the ship is pulling away from the dock and the sails are down and slowly, so slowly, becomes distant. Until the green of Rapunzel's eyes, then the brown of her hair, then the pink of her dress are too far to see.

Anna waves anyway.

Kristoff takes her free hand—her left—and squeezes it. "Married, huh?"

She sniffles and breaks eye contact with the ship long enough to look up at him, the beginnings of a genuine smile quirking her lips. "Wanna?"

He makes a face at her. "What, that's it? No ring? No down on one knee? I'm beginning to think you're only proposing to me on a whim.  _So_ like you."

And it doesn't sting at all, it's just… a thing that happened. She's over it now. And, ooh—that's another autology:  _engagement._

"I love you," she tells him, which doesn't really answer his questions, but he kisses her anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end, folks! I'm aiming to write an Elsa-focused sequel at some point, but the main arc is now complete. I hope you've enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> You'll see the next installment in a week's time; I'm trying to keep a chapter ahead or so, so Once Every Friday sounds about right.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In Nomine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901127) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




End file.
